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RICHARD MORRISON

By Kerry, Ceren, Rebecca and Nicole

+BIOGRAPHY: (1973-present) Richard is an English designer of film title sequences; he is

responsible for 150 film title sequences.

He studied graphics, photography and film and his career began on the James Bond film series

He has been Chairman of Europe’s film and animation conference “Pencil to Pixel” and was appointed Honorary Professor of Digital Film School of Media Arts and Imaging at Dundee University

He has worked with directors like Tim Burton and Ridley Scott and his title sequences include Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Girl with a Pearl Earring, Scott Pilgrim vs the World, The Golden Compass and Batman

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+ “I look for a nuance, a subliminal energy in a film that I can then work into an idea. A lot of my title sequences don’t give much away, but they give you a flavour.”

+CREEP (2004) OPENING ANALYSISThe sequence begins with a shot of medical equipment. The footage is shaky and the lighting blurry, therefore disorienting the audience. The music is ominous, similar to the sound of a moving train establishing the setting of the film, and paired with the shaky footage gives the audience a sense of unease. The camera moves around the train station but the footage remains out of focus, so the audience are unaware of what is really going on and feel on edge. We see a blood stain near the tools, suggesting gore, torture and death. The font could be compared to scratch marks, suggesting something animalistic and violent. Despite the distorted images, we can that a woman is injured, linking in with the current suggestions of gore and torture. We notice that not much is given away in this sequence – everything is distorted – which links in with Morrison’s preference of keeping his title sequences vague; we only get a taste of the genre.

The music speeds up and increases in volume, which has an intimidating effect on the audience. We see then a relatively clear shot of a vulnerable looking, blood stained woman whose mouth is covered by somebody’s hand, suggesting there is something that has hunted/hurt her. The sound of a liquid dripping, presumably blood, at the same time emphasizes the genre and we then hear a woman crying as she runs away. We can infer from all the previous shouts that she is being chased by something and can tell she is panicking and scared from the sound of her heavy breath and screams. We witness her running from behind, which makes the audience feel that they are chasing her or running with her.

The title sequence ends with title appearing on screen and behind in the underground symbol, confirming the location of the film and, as the font and logo are scratched, the audience will get a sense of destruction and violence.

+SWEENEY TODD (2007) OPENING ANALYSISThe title sequence begins looking animated with rain drops of blood coming down, the sequence as a whole is very dark and features a lot of dull colours although the colour red shines out brightly. The use of dark colours make the audience think that something bad is bound to happen especially as when blood is used dropping onto a window the contrast between the two adds to the fact that death will probably feature in the film. The typography used looks as if it is set in the olden times as it looks like an old newspaper type font. The way the titles appear is in order of whom is key to the film. The names that appear all fade in and fade out which could create an eerie atmosphere for the audience, where they fade out this could foreshadow that the actors characters will die or disappear.

 At the beginning of the title sequence we are shown a tracking shot of the tops of houses, the houses have working chimneys with smoke coming out of them this shows us that the film will be set many years back. The chair is a main feature in the title sequence which can show that this will be a main part in the film. Blood drips onto a set of cogs enabling them to turn this shows that blood will be needed in the film, the blood also suggests the genre of the film which would be horror. The music starts off as mellow but becomes louder towards the end of the title sequence, this makes the audience feel as though something bad is bound to happen.

 The sequence as a whole is very dark and the use of white typography seems to be the only pure colour. The text and dullness of the sequence work together with the blood and connotations of death to help establish the horror genre.