Titles Analysis

Catch Me If You Can Opening Credits

I have decided to analyse the opening scene of Catch Me If You Can as it is an example of opening credits in which we cannot take inspiration from. Although the titles for Catch Me If You Can work with their genres - comedy, crime and drama I believe they are incorrect for their target audience. I think the use of typography is too childish as its thick, rounded nature is slightly cartoonish and feminine. Stereotypically it would be thought that this film was aimed solely at females due to the genres and the opening credits however the other genres, crime and drama are more male orientated and unexpectedly, there are many men who enjoy comedies of this sort as well which we learnt from our research. Due to the target audience also being aimed at males I think the titles do not portray this well enough. I know that the opening credits are certainly not the most important part of a film to the audience, and often go unnoticed unless a special interest is taken in a certain actor/actress’s, however I still dislike these titles.

Another reason I believe the opening credits are childish are because they play on the genres of the film, using cartoon men and women dressed in costumes to help begin the film. Similarly, they also play on the areas in which the film is based, such as an airport or a holiday resort which again helps to introduce the plot of the film to the audience. Although I believe it is slightly unnecessary for the film to be introduced in such a way, it could also be considered quite clever as it plays on the words of the film's title, using a plane to try and catch up with the moving titles. Despite not liking the titles as a whole, I believe that this is one of the few clever aspects to the opening credits and think it would be quite amusing for the audience to watch. I think this would word effectively as it would successfully hold the audience's attention due to the many factors going on, making it successful in its purpose of introducing the opening of the film and the characters within it, which is what it is designed for.

For the reasons mentioned above, I think the credits to Catch Me If You Can are unsuitable to take inspiration from for our own opening two minutes, and I think this mainly down to the difference in genres. To me, the titles appear quite dated and from research I have found it was produced in 2002 which provides reasoning behind the dated feel, however at the time I'm sure they would have been considered very modern. For our film, we would like to use quite plain, classy titles because we don't want to distract the audience from watching the actual film, and we believe that the content of the film is more important than the credits, however we understand the important of the opening credits and why they are necessary.