Gordonated

James Bond Opening Titles

Not many girls enjoy James Bond. Girls find him “too-good-to-be-true”. Some even hate the way he treat women especially. Some guys, worship him. Posters and limited edition James Bond DVD fill up their TV rack. Me, on the other hand, worship the movie opening titles.
As usual, a typical Bond movie starting with a little movie teaser at the beginning of the movie. Then, we move to the trademarked gun barrel sequence. Amazing. Still looks good after all these years. If you have no idea about this, James will be walking normally then make a sudden turn towards the screed and shoots. The scene then will be rendered showing the assassin’s blood, filmed through a rifled gun barrel as if its from the perspective of the bullet.

Here’s the climax:

The main titles!

Every James Bond movie title is amazing. Back from the Sean Connery years up to the recent Daniel Craig domain. They usually deplete slight female nudity. (yes..) Usually, there will be a little symbol symbolizing certain motifs and usually are non-related to the movie plot. The films theme will then be played along as the stills move around while the credits appear. Typographically, I could say that they have fairly decent typography over the titles. Can’t really recall them but they are worth observing and drool over.Casino Royale’s credits differ from the rest firstly because of the heavy use of computer graphics and violence in it. The motif’s used were playing cards while silhouettes of Bond fighting villains shown through. No women shown - with full respect to all females, I’m no ‘genderist’ but this time, they simply decided to move beyond that track.Designers involved:-

Maurice Blinder (1962-1991)
Robery Brownjohn (1963-1964)
Daniel Kleinman (1991-present)

Maurice Blinder was pretty much responsible for the gun barrel sequence thingie.

Daniel Kleinman brought in computer graphics into the picture when he took over. Click here for a short interview about Casino Royale’s main titles.

Robert Brownjohn took Marget Bolan (41′ 23′ 37′) and projected the titles all over her body in Goldfinger (1964). Typography in this case, has been treated so seductively. (Ref= Sex & Typography)

The main titles can tell many things about what one should expect from a movie. It holds the key to wether a viewer will enjoy the movie or not. It gives viewers a ‘last-minute-excitement-boast”, working almost like a magazine cover. In things like these, type plays a very important part. If can seriously damage or spoilt the entire show if some sucky typeface or sucky type-treatment appears. Imagine arial shouting 90% all-over the screen. Or imagine Garamond being condensed at the begining of Pirates of the Caribbean.

So finally, if you are an inspired to be a type-geek, watch movie titles and ending credits. That’s the best part a movie can offer you. Seriously.

(updated post from previous blog, because i still think James Bond is cool)