Zodiac opening title sequence

By Emma King-Lewis

NewspaperThe sequence maps a journey across a newspaper which is illustrating that a recent crime has occurred. The camera pans over the newspaper quickly subliminally giving clues along the way, not enough to piece a full story together however. It creates intrigue for the audience and the suspense builds throughout.

From start to finish, the sequence takes place on the newspaper. It highlights different titles, crossing and circling different ones with a thick red pen. We also see some 3D and moving images which creates a mysterious effect, giving the audience very tiny clues on what is to come. Upon first impressions, there are no apparent signs of what is about to happen, but with further analysis, you see that much more is given away than originally meets the eye.

SoundtrackThe soundtrack is Hurdy Gurdy Man by Donovan and is 3:18 minutes, however only 1.51 minutes of the song is used in the opening title sequence for Zodiac. The effect that is used for the vocal is a high reverb which loses some of the clarity in the pronunciation of the lyrics, in keeping with the theme of the audience trying to guess, leaving them with a sense of unease. The tone of the song is also dark and somber which is rather disconcerting for the viewer.

Mise-en-SceneThe visual themes are black and white with the use of a red thick pen, mainly text with some moving images, red being used to highlight or circle and erase certain words. At times, certain words stand out leaving the rest of the page blurred, highlighting names for the opening credits. Black writing on a white background is used to create the theme of a traditional newspaper and the red ink signifies blood and anger and is also the audiences expectation of what detectives use to highlight and circle key words. The blurring of certain areas and the choice to highlight certain words is a continuous theme which is again in keeping with the style previously mentioned, directing the audience to distinct, certain areas of information and only giving so much away.

LocationThe beginning action of the sequence pans over the words San Francisco Chronicle (as shown below)Zodiac is set in San Francisco in the late 1960’s-early 1970’s and based on the true story of a notorious serial killer who called himself ‘The Zodiac’ The only thing that gives the location away in the opening sequence is the ‘San Francisco Chronicle” Newspaper being shown at the beginning of the film. This later turns out to be the publication that the murderer sent his encrypted letters to. The song used was also released in 1968 and is therefore in keeping with the period.

Credit SequenceThe clip is 1:51 minutes and begins by crediting Warner bros pictures and Paramount Pictures showing their importance and relevance in this film. They come on first at 0.29 minutes. The next thing to be highlighted is ‘a phoenix pictures production’ showing the company that made it at 0.35 minutes then leading on to the director, David Fincher at 0.51. At 0.59, the three leading actors appear together. When compared to other films (Pulp Fiction), this is odd as they are all shown at the same, especially when considering the profile that they each bring. This makes them seem small when compared to the project as whole. That being said, they are the only three actors to be credited at all during in this sequence, leading to the opinion that this film has a less focus on the actors than others previously discussed in this blog.

Credit Sequence Continued..

The credits continue onto casting at 1.06 minutes which was lead by Lara Mayfield (presented as the top image in this slide) followed by the DOP, Harry Savides at 1.19 minutes. Finally, the title, Zodiac at 1.39. The pan across the newspaper comes to halt on an encrypted cipher, eventually crossfading with the film title.This opening sequence is very short in comparison to others, i.e. Skyfall which is around 4 minutes. This is because Skyfall has huge production values and a large amount of people to credit compared to Zodiac.