Part of Lesson Plan: Basics of Video Titles

Activity Overview / Details

Have students go to one of the following movie title database sites:
http://www.shillpages.com/movies/index2.shtml
http://av-geek.com/main.php
http://www.annyas.com/screenshots/

Have them browse the title screens from the movies and select one that they like. Let them browse long enough to get a feel for the variety of titles there are. When they have found a title, have them pair up and share with a partner. They should find a title that they feel shows something important about the movie itself while still be a work of art in itself.

Discussion:

1. What does the title graphic tell about what kind of movie this is? What genere? What era is it from?
2. How are design elements such as fonts, color, graphic elements used to create the percetion?

Share out some of the discussions with the entire class.

Play the Machete Opening Titles video to get students excited about working with tiles. There are more examples in the presentation that follows.

Details about this opening title sequence can be found at:
http://www.artofthetitle.com/2011/02/28/machete/

Students should read through the details of how this sequence was developed. Briefly discuss as a class any thing of interest that the students discovered in their reading.

Once discussion is complete, go through the Types of Titles Presentation to orient students to the types of titles typically used in video and film.

For additional examples of titles, use examples fro the innovative title designer Saul Bass at: http://notcoming.com/saulbass/index2.php