RESEARCH: Art of the title - The Rook

RESEARCH: Art of the title - The Rook

The Title sequence for rook immediately intrigues me as a viewer as it is both able to evoke feeling of uneasiness and confusion while still being appealing to watch

The opening frames start of with some very faint music that feels like it is building towards something dangerous and exciting, yet paired with the visual codes of a woman in a slow motion action dropping her keys makes me question whether there is something dangerous about these keys, this same image of the keys further evokes more interpretation through its use of visual codes, the key is attached to a red key-ring, which further evokes feelings of danger as the colour red has connotations of blood and death.

This quickly and sharply cuts to a montage of images that have been distorted and made difficult to identify through its use of the kaleidoscope effect, as the opening moves onward the editing makes the images expand outwards leaving the effect of falling through this rabbit hole of memories, with heir being very faint images that are barely recognisable. This feeling of falling is has a further impact through how its volume increases and decrease as the images expand, as a viewer this montage is very engaging for me as they use synchronous sound due to when we hear the beat drop the image changes with the music tone making each frame-change evoke different emotions. For example, at 14 seconds the generic cars and the usual colours make the image feel very familiar to the audience making it feel less dangerous therefore there is a sense of fidelity in how the music compliments this with it being very mellow and clam however this very quickly changes with the music taking three sharp beats before becoming louder and faster and the image complimenting this feeling of danger with their being more unfamiliar, unnatural scenes.

Beige and grey colour scheme make this a more familiar image, a severe contrast with other frames

The audience are then presented with a montage edit of people seen through a translucent piece of glass, the first being a person being pushed, however due to the glass being translucent this same person has no identity and all the other frames where a similar effect Is used these people feel reminiscent of ghosts with how they reach out to the audience as if wanting help. The opening includes a lot of different people’s profile with being able to see the outline of their face however the people themselves are made unfamiliar and unrecognisable through how none of their facial details are shown, projecting this feeling of danger for the audience.

Getting to the end of the opening, the music begins to have less rhythm and the cuts begin to be asynchronous making it feel overwhelming for the audience member, this in my opinion is a very clever way to end the title sequence as you are now put into the shoes of the main character who has lost her memory and can’t remember the main details of her life as this would definitely be overwhelming for someone.