Editing - Titles

Editing the Titles

Examples of the titles I made using Photoshop CS5 can be found at this post. Here is one example:

I wanted to emulate the style of the titles I had previously seen in this film noir clip by having the title cover the majority of the screen and fading into each other.

I placed the first title on top of the footage like so:

I then moved it slightly further along  the timeline so I would have time to place the fading transition. I felt the white writing looked a little stark against the dark background so I used the colour correction to lower the exposure slightly, making it a faded grey colour.

I then lined up all the titles next to each other with no gaps in between so they would fade seamlessly into each other. I set them to show for four seconds each as this was a similar time period to the clip I'd watched. Like in most film noirs, I put the names of the main actors first. Instead of using the names of the real actors, my dad and Mindi, I used the names of two of the biggest film noir stars to make the film look more authentic. Then, I dragged the cross dissolve transition onto each of the titles which added a cross dissolve to the start and beginning of each one.

Here is an example of what the titles look like on top of the footage.

I'm pleased with how the titles turned out as I think they are similar to how titles in real film noir look. I think the cross dissolve makes it look particularly effective, and I like how all the titles appear within the first minute as they don't obstruct the real action of the film.