>> Jane Pauley: The Hollywood movie makers, giving credit where credit is due
is more than just a professional courtesy.
It's an industry all its own.
Our cover story is reported by Lee Cowan.
[music: The Naked Gun Theme]
>> Lee Cowan: A main title sequences go, The Naked Gun may not have been the most
artistic and movie-making history. But it did its job remarkably well.
It teed up the absurdity of the absurdly funny film that followed.
>> Leslie Nelson: Bingo!
>> Lee Cowan: But like all title sequences, it fulfilled another need.
Distracting us from what we're really watching.
A long lists of names,
that's their role, display each name for the contractually agreed upon time.
The industry standard by the way is about two seconds. But it also has
to do it in a creative way. Whether it's with the cafeteria food in Napoleon
Dynamite, or the windblown fonts in Twister.
>> Kyle Cooper: You're in the theater
and the lights go down and you see this amazing thing that will evoke an emotional response.
It's like 12 frames off.
>> Cowan: Kyle Cooper has spent a lifetime of invoking that response.
[music: Mission Impossible theme]
He lit the fuse in Mission Impossible
and he took us under the microscope in The Island of Dr. Moreau.
>> Cooper: I like eyes and veins and arteries and
insects and I'd like to observe things that really exist and research things.
>> Cowan: He sees putting names on the screen, it's really the utilitarian part title design.
The art he says comes at how it all blends with the music.
Telegraph the look and the feel of a film without giving too much or too little away.
Cooper is perhaps best known for his title designs for Seven.
Where he took the audience into the mad but meticulous mind of a serial killer.
>> Cooper: I was at the premiere for Seven, and when we dropped that thing on the people, they went nuts.
They were like.. four Seven and there's this reaction. So it did what in in the
best way what a title sequence is supposed to do. I consider these things
to be short films. >> Cowan: It's a movie within a movie.
>> Cooper: I think so.
[music]
>> Cowan: In the early days, main titles were just that.
Titles with fancy fonts, like the fairy tale look of The Adventures of Robin Hood.
For the colossal look of King Kong.
>> Lola Landekic: Beautiful iconic title card, strong music,
you knew that you're going to see something larger than life.
King Kong (grawls) (Screams)
>> Cowan: Lola Landekic is managing editor of a website called Art of the Title.
An exhaustive resource for anyone wanting to take a deep title sequence dive.
>> Landekic: Oh yeah, it's a rabbit hole. Yeah, you can spend your life studying this.
>> Cowan: A good title sequence she says it's all about mood.
Star Wars gave us that once upon a time feel.
While Bond, was pure intrigue.
That iconic gun barrel was a design of
Maurice Bender, back in 1962 and it has stood the test of time.
[music: Goldfinger theme]
Designer Robert Brown John took to projecting titles onto models and that too stuck.
>> Landekic: You have the gadgets, the guns, and the girls that's the trifecta.
there's a patron saint of title design most agree it would be Saul bats if
you're a fan of Otto Preminger or Alfred Hitchcock you know his work
they were a little more abstract they were very abstract but it depends on how
you're looking at it I would look at something like psycho and you could
argue that it's abstract or you can argue that it's literal because psycho
is sliced up
what about vertigo
from the first few seconds of the film you feel dizzy and you don't know what's
happening which of course was precisely the point these things are working on
you in this way that is totally subconscious good ones work and you
don't even know they work exactly it's not just theatrical releases The
Sopranos started an arms race in TV main title design
gone are the meet the cast days of The Brady Bunch
now we have the more nuanced look of Mad Men or the beautifully eerie look of
West world it's great when you get that real texture of the muscles coming
through anymore Patrick Clair has won two Emmys for best main title design
first for true detective it began last year for the man in the
high castle a series that Ponder's the question what if the Allies had lost
World War two what ingredient I guess if there is one that makes a really good
title secret I think it's got to be simple yeah yeah I look at my favorite
title sequences and they all have a very sort of pure simple idea at the heart of
them whether it's a brutality of cooking breakfast in a show like Dexter a dead
body being prepared for burial and six feet under take these simple acts and
turn them into something that really speaks to the journey of the characters
but it's cool because the production design is going to change over time
finding that simplicity however can be a superhuman challenge especially in the
sometimes complex universe of superheroes and this is my favorite part
bland right in your face Aaron sir oski has designed title sequences for for
Marvel films including Captain America the Winter Soldier there's a lot going
on there and the beautifully intricate Doctor Strange both these cases her
designs came at the end of the film not at the beginning the movie doesn't end
on the final frame it ends really after the directors kind of finished having
his way with you so to speak so it's like the sorbet at the end of the meal
can't get the sorbet titles like these at the end of the film may have the
toughest job of all keeping him in your seat
we want them to take away from your title sequence well I want them to wait
till the very end of the scroll and look for her Nick as an added incentive to
stick around Marvel has taken a page from Ferris Bueller's Day Off you're
still here at the end of those credits we got this it's over I hope you stick
around long enough through the end of Marvel's Deadpool you're still here
you'll get a great spoon it's over it's over
go home go home a reminder that it's worth those few extra minutes of your
attention though whether at the beginning or the end to give credit to
those giving credit to
you