RESEARCH: Art of The Title - Skyfall (2012)

 RESEARCH: Art of The Title - Skyfall (2012) 

The title sequence is instantly made immersive through its transition, traditionally there would be a hard cut which then transitions into the opening titles consisting of slides of text, although the high budget that Eon Films is able to apply to their James Bond franchise allows for the editing in this opening sequence to be far more ambitious. The main storyline cuts off with an enigma, Is James Bond dead? The opening titles use graphic effects to play on our distress for the character with the image of Bond getting absorbed into the abyss, overlaid with the main title of the film. This makes for a very dramatic screenshot which asks the question, can Bond recover. Returning fans would see through this knowing Bond has the resilience to brush this off physically, but as the title sequence continues we begin to see that the question is more whether he can emotionally recover.

The titles continue into a down the rabbit hole reminiscent sequence where we see an insight into Bonds mind, predominantly consisting of all things death related with the setting being monochrome with blue saturation. The objects that flew past him consisted of targets, grave headstones, guns and swords. This may be a reflection on how these are the themes that consume him and considering this is played over a blue tint it may connote how it is not only the water that is drowning him however it is the violence that is consuming him. The sequence then moves to an ultra wide zoom of Bond's Eyeball where it continues to zoom further into the pupil, until the audience is immersed into another setting which appears to have Bond standing in a desolate place with four shadows that he proceeds to shoot. The editing taking us through the centre of his eye is an insight to his soul, and due to us being presented with an image of bond shooting his own shadow we can interpret this as bond trying to kill his demons, however as we can see he fails to shoot the last one which then props up and points the gun at him, probably foreshadowing of the plot to come.

Finally it ends with a montage of hallucinogenic clips, with effects such as mirroring and reverberate being applied. One of the clips drawing the most attention would be the ripped up paper which has been set on fire, however as the clip zooms in we see that these images in fact are images of Bond. This plays on the classic trope of Bond having a target on his head with Bond having to overcome the challenges thrown at him. The final clip in the montage presents Bond in his classic form with a suit on and his gun pointed at waist height, however despite this, the bullet wound we just saw him receive is still stained in the same spot on his suit, this may be in reference to how Bond may never truly recover from these injuries.

In Conclusion the title moves at such a pace that without pausing, it is simply an aesthetically pleasing cut together which moves seamlessly into attractive visuals. If one looks deeper with some analysis the basic plot of the movie is revealed with it being evident that Bonds mental health is going to be challenged.