James Bond Opening Credits

So I was thinking about all of the cool opening sequences that I have watched recently and one really stood out.  The opening to the new James Bond movie Skyfall was incredible.  I remember watching it in the movie theatre with one of my friends and we were just amazed.


007 Skyfall - Opening Credits (Best Quality Yet) from Gunnar Lien on Vimeo.

(Sorry the Italian version was the best quality one I could find)

The very beginning of the sequence is underwater and while it looks really awesome also seems like it could be easy to make.  After that, Bond is in a 3-d environment and this looks really complicated to do.  After that  it goes back underwater this times with dragons and fire.  Then all craziness ensues with picture in picture in picture giving it a fast paced dangerous theme.  After that it is back to the 3-d environment. Then another part that goes into his heart and then ends with a close up on his eye.  Adele also does a great job with the music, and the intro enhances the sound to get a very sad but energetic feeling.

I looked up who designed this intro and it was a man called Daniel Kleinman.  I looked into more of other Kleinmans works and he has done the intros for Golden Eye, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World is Not Enough, Die Another Day, and Casino Royale.  These intros are all very similar but also very well done.  Apparently the key to success for a James Bond opening sequence is an erie but fast paced song, graphics, guns, girls, and blood.  Now they don't all follow this formula, (ex: no girls in Casino Royale's) but pretty much thats the winning recipe.  I love James Bond movies and I am looking forward to more movies and title sequences in the future.

Casino Royale

      My favorite movie franchise of all time is Albert Broccoli and Eon Production's depiction of James Bond.  Strangely enough, both Mr. Broccoli and I share the nickname "Cubby!"  Back on topic though, I find it impressive that the Bond series stays fresh and enjoyable despite having more than twenty movies.  Sure it may be the same spy premise every time, but if it's not broken, why change it?  Aside from how entertaining the films are, I also love the title sequences.
      Everyone knows the gun barrel sequence, which may be perhaps the most recognizable aspect of the series aside from the theme music.  What I like more than the famous gun barrel sequence is the intro credits.  They all follow some sort of theme from the movie.  Of all the intros, I like Casino Royale's the best.  The theme it follows is playing cards, which constitutes the latter half of the film.

      There are so many subtle aspects of this intro that get often overlooked.  For example, at about 1:36 when the crosshair passes over the queen's face, it reveals the face of the lead actress.  At the end of the sequence, there are cards flying around but over time they change into British pounds if you look closely.  What I would like to replicate or learn how it was done would be at 2:16 when the gun fires and streaks fly out in different directions.  It makes me wonder if it was done with an expression or perhaps when they assembled it they set it to random and it just happened to create that design.  A better question might be how many people did it take to put this together!

Movie Openings

Since our next project is creating an opening sequence for a movie I thought I would look up some of the more famous openings. I cam across this site that had 30 Unforgettable Movie Opening Sequences.

I am still not sure what movie I want to create an opening for but all of the sequences on this site were very interesting. They looked very hard to make but they are extremely well done. These make a very good first impression for the movie especially when I haven't seen all of them. Below are a few on the opening sequences I personally liked the best.