Heat- Opening Scene & Titles

Heat- 1995 Directed Michael Mann

Opening Titles 

Warner Brothers 
Regency
Warner Bros. Presents
In Association with Regency Enterprises
A Forward pass production
Al Pacino - Robert De Niro
HEAT
Val Kilmer
Tom Sizemore
Jane Venora
Amy Brenneman
Dennis Haysbert
Ashley Judd
Mykelti Williamson
Wes Studi
Ted Levine
William Fichtner
Natalie Portman
Tom Nooman
Kevin Gaze- Hank Azaria
Susan Traylor - Kim Staunton 
and Jon Voight
Casting by Bonnie Timmermann
Costume Designer Deborah L Scott
Music Composed by Elliot Goldenthal

In this clip, the opening  titles, are layered on top of the opening sequence, in a series of blue capital letters fading in and out. With the title of the film appearing in the largest letters with the longest amount of screen time.
I chose this clip to research , as I only have 2 minutes for my thriller opening sequence, so the titles need to be layered upon the moving picture otherwise they would take up all the time.
The most important credits which are seen first, are shown in a very light blue colour similar to the poster colour, upon a black screen, enabling the audience to focus all their attention upon the lead characters.
The thriller genre is established through the font, it resembles a police reports font; crime being a major convention of the thriller genre. The tension is also built through the opening credits due to the slow progression from title to title.
The opening sequence happening behind the credits, begins with a series of establishing shots of a train station late at night. There is then a slow motion shot, which follows the character being portrayed as the most important on his journey somewhere. This is an effective way to build tension as the audience instantly wonder why the camera is focused upon him and where he is going?
The Sound plays an important role in establishing the genre; within the opening sequence as the slow music begins to build, the tension increases as the camera continues to follow this one character. As the screen time spent on this character increases,the sound changes into a variation of lower pitched notes, enabling the audience to feel suspicious about this character, and implies that the plot is about to change into something more gloomy.