Conventional Title Order

Title orders at the opening of a film is to, essentially, show the order of importance of people and companies who made the film possible. The first thing that is shown is the studio logo as they are the ones who made sure the film was made a reality rather than just an idea. The logo is followed by "Studio/Producer presents. This could follow immediately after the studio logo or a small opening section of the film can first be shown followed by the rest of the titles.


Usually the film's title will follow bigger than the rest of the titles or in a different font; something to show that this is the creation all these people are responsible for. After the title of the film, the names of main/major actors will show across the screen however this could also come before the title of the film, depending on how the editor/director wanted the title order to be.


The main actor's name will stand on the screen by itself as this may have ben one of the reasons for the number of people watching and so it is very important, arguably more important than the rest of the cast. An example of this could be in the Pirates of the Caribbean series, Johnny Depp or Orlando Bloom could draw in a lot of women and make the audience number larger. The camera person/operator may now appear on screen but sometimes they are left until the end of the film in the complete credits.


The editor's name is then shown across the screen, they are responsible for putting the credits in the order that they are. The composer of the film's soundtrack is presented; their work may be played whilst the opening title is being shown, underneath a verbal scene or across landscapes for example. However, their work also may not be played whilst the opening credits are being shown. The screenwriter is responsible for the creation of the film as it is them who thought of or researched the plotline. Some films change screenwriters whilst in production, in that case whoever wrote the script/ thought of the film idea would receive a "Screenstory by..." credit on screen at some point.

The last two people who are credited on screen is the producer and the director. The producer is shown first and then the director. These two roles are presented last as they are the most important functions to the movie. The director is the last one as it is the one who has constructed the film to be what it is and is the name that should be remembered most.



This is an example of an opening title sequence from The Notebook, one of the films that we were inspired by. Although inspired by the film, we didn't follow it's opening title sequence completely. We did it another way with less titles as not all films follow the same title order and so we did it our own way as the director/editor will have the last say in which way round the titles appear.