Editing: Improvising the Titles

In our previous projects, the teachers didn't require us to put in any titles so this was a new task. Though, we weren't entirely unprepared! During the planning process, we looked into the titles other movies used. The things we looked for included their font, order of appearance and when they came on screen. We then determined the format our own titles using those movies as a reference. When actually putting in the titles, we didn't really use much of the plan at all. The original font we had set wasn't available on the editing program I was using, so I had to search for one that was similar to the original one. I stopped trying to compare the fonts very early on, and just chose one that worked best for the project. The same method was used to determine the rest of the format for the other titles.

The font color I chose to use on most of the titles was black. This was because all of the shots were bright enough for it to be seen clearly. On some of the outdoor shots that were darker, I put the title in the sky to make it visible. The only place where I changed this color was during an indoor shot where it was very dark. In that shot I made the font white. We used a template for the titles to make them dissolve onto screen. This originally made some problems, as when the title appeared, there was a weird yellow glow around it despite the font being set to black. I had to fiddle with the setting a little, but I eventually found that the "glow" setting was turned to yellow. I then changed the glow to a light green, to match the background more.

Next, I had to decide when the titles should appear. At the beginning, I stuck to the storyboard, but then the titles started to look a little too crowded, fit into two or three second intervals. I then started to break the titles up, like having the words "edited by" and the names of the editors separate. I then staggered the times that they came on and faded off, which created a wonderful effect that me and a team mate perfected, and used on the other titles after that. I didn't apply it to all of them, wanting to keep some variation.

In this photo, the purple bars represent the titles. You can see how the ends and beginnings of them are staggered, which is the technique I was talking about.