ART OF THE TITLE 1 - DETECTIVES

9/10/14 | RESEARCH | THE ART OF THE TITLE

We went on The Art of the Title website today and analysed the opening to a French detective series called ‘Détectives’. We all participated in analysing and deconstructing the visual codes in the opening titles.

We went through each shot discovering how there were clues in the titles to the genre and what identifies it as TV show not a film opening. I almost immediately recognised that it was a TV series as the sequence was rapidly paced and showed images of the main characters. In film opening sequences it is very uncommon to show images of the characters they usually simply display the actor/actresses name. Films are also a lot more relaxed with the length of the titles as they do not need to rush into the programme they can build tension up for the film.

The location was also established quickly as the title sequence is made up of the streets of Paris being filmed and then sped up with a time lapse effect. We can see that it’s based in Paris as there are shots of iconic landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower. The music is upbeat and bouncy which indicates that the TV series is cheerful, this somewhat contrasts with the name which suggests serious crime. The pace of the music also suggests that in the show cases are solved quickly. The whole sequence appears to be showing the streets through an advanced version of Google maps.