Daniel Kleinman's title sequence

I really liked the title sequence. Surprising thing I found was the presence of nude women, I kept hearing that they were totally absent in this one yet there they were, just not as prominent as the Binder/Kleinman-Brosnan years and I thought that was for the better because there's only so much you can do with women on trampolines. I like that the titles have become more creative starting with CR, though QOS's got redundant with the constant image of a bullet in the air.

And I thought the song worked greatly for this. I intentionally avoided listening to it after the first hearing last month so that it could be more fresh to me when accompanied by Kleinman's titles. Glad I did that, I really dug what I heard and saw.

Rating it? Somewhere between "Really Liked It" and "Loved it", guess I'll hit the latter anyway.

Largo's Shark wrote:

Better quality.

Was gonna post that.

Something tells me I shouldn't like it, and I do get what Lazenby said about it being too literal. But I do like it. I don't have any complaints about it.

I also like the song, which seems to be down there with the film GOLDFINGER in terms of popularity here.

Did I mention I really like OCTOPUSSY?

The song works for me in the film. It's not a great song, but it strikes the right mood.

And I'm with ya, Tux. I really dig the title sequence. I can see the the too-crowded argument, but I'd rather the title sequence have too many ideas than too few. If SKYFALL had actually been a novel by Fleming, it's easy to imagine quite a few of Kleinman's images elegantly gracing the covers of its past paperback editions.

I like a lot of the images (particular standouts for me are the flaming effigies of Bond, Bond being dragged into the depths, and the sequence that accompanies 'Where you go I go/What you see I see' etc)

But I don't really care for the way the camera (or the illusion of the camera, I suppose) constantly feels to be moving forward. For whatever reason it just doesn't work for me.

Agree that the song works much, much better in the film.

Vesper wrote:

But I don't really care for the way the camera (or the illusion of the camera, I suppose) constantly feels to be moving forward. For whatever reason it just doesn't work for me.

That's one of my favourite things about it. As another poster on a board said, I'm surprised it's taken this long for a Bond title sequence to take a page from the Seven Nation Army video. Works very well with the drum groove.

Largo's Shark wrote:

Vesper wrote:

But I don't really care for the way the camera (or the illusion of the camera, I suppose) constantly feels to be moving forward. For whatever reason it just doesn't work for me.

That's one of my favourite things about it. As another poster on a board said, I'm surprised it's taken this long for a Bond title sequence to take a page from the Seven Nation Army video. Works very well with the drum groove.

I also like that. Binder would have probably done it had the technology existed. He always had things moving by a static frame, but I like that this one moves around and explores all of the visual ideas.

Harmsway wrote:

The song works for me in the film. It's not a great song, but it strikes the right mood.

And I'm with ya, Tux. I really dig the title sequence. I can see the the too-crowded argument, but I'd rather the title sequence have too many ideas than too few. If SKYFALL had actually been a novel by Fleming, it's easy to imagine quite a few of Kleinman's images elegantly gracing the covers of its past paperback editions.

I was thinking that same thing. Especially with the skulls. The skull with the teeth that becomes a grave yard would work very well for a cover if the film were a novel. I love stuff like that.

As for the song, I think it works perfectly for the sequence and for the film. I think it's a song that could be better with some reworking.

Only seen once, so can't give a definitive rating. That said, my initial response was a bit of disappointment. As Sharky mentioned, too much going on. Not unitary enough. It's almost as if Kleinman attempted to cram all of the film's imagery--and there's a lot of it--into 3:30 minutes of film. His work for CR is probably my favorite of all the titles; I think his work in SF falls well short of that mark.

And I much prefer the song to the titles.

I felt the same way about the titles the first time, Khan, but they're much more rewarding on repeat viewing. Now I know what Skyfall's about I can see they have a certain Gothic charm. Third time around I will keep an eye out for a mad woman in an attic.

Mind you, it's coming to something when you have to see a film more than once before you can follow its titles ....

Never really noticed it before, but is 01:15 meant to be an adolescent Craig-Bond? Looks like acne on the nose.

Largo's Shark wrote:

Never really noticed it before, but is 01:15 meant to be an adolescent Craig-Bond? Looks like acne on the nose.

How did you embed vimeo here??

Copy this:

Code:

[flash(600,350)]http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=IDNUMBER&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1[/flash]

Then replace "IDNUMBER" with the video's ID number, in this case "53442121."

That's for a 16:9 aspect ratio. If you want 4:3, use this:

Code:

[flash(512,384)]http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=IDNUMBER&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1[/flash]

Largo's Shark wrote:

Copy this:

Code:

[flash(600,350)]http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=IDNUMBER&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1[/flash]

Then replace "IDNUMBER" with the video's ID number, in this case "53442121."

That's for a 16:9 aspect ratio. If you want 4:3, use this:

Code:

[flash(512,384)]http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=IDNUMBER&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1[/flash]

Interesting...merci...now to fuck around with it :study:

To download a larger video in HD, go here...you'll need Apple QT

http://vimeo.com/53442121

Largo's Shark wrote:

Never really noticed it before, but is 01:15 meant to be an adolescent Craig-Bond? Looks like acne on the nose.

This also confuses me - it looks like Craig, but something is not right about the face, he's much younger looking compared to his appearance at the end of the titles.

GeneralGogol wrote:

Largo's Shark wrote:

Never really noticed it before, but is 01:15 meant to be an adolescent Craig-Bond? Looks like acne on the nose.

This also confuses me - it looks like Craig, but something is not right about the face, he's much younger looking compared to his appearance at the end of the titles.

I think it's a reference to what Kincade says to M later in the film, about a 11/12 year old Bond spending 2 days in the priest hole after his parents' death, going in as a boy but coming out as a man.

Wow, I didn't even notice that in theaters that it was a boy. Weird.

Wow. A young James Bond.

Really cool to see the sequence without the credits, hope that's on the special features like the other films have.

Also, it looks like 1:90 aspect, which makes me wonder: Was the film mastered in that ratio, including the gunbarrel? I didn't pay too much to the ratio of those parts when I watched in IMAX, but if so that would mean it was then cropped for 2:35.

I changed my rank from 7/10 to 8.5/10, now that we can mull over it some more.

Python wrote:

Also, it looks like 1:90 aspect, which makes me wonder: Was the film mastered in that ratio, including the gunbarrel?

Yep.

At 2:22, didn't know what the hell that in theaters but now I take it that's Silva in torture under the Chinese, and his agony with the death pill?

As said earlier, there's so much going on that it can be overwhelming to the uninitiated, so you can't fully appreciate the sequence until having seen the whole thing. So refreshing after MK12's whole lotta nothing of a title sequence. I hope no future director insists on bringing their own title designer over Kleinman again. With CR and SF, EON should stick to their guns. Kleinman can overreach, but I rather have a guy like him doing that instead of coasting. Binder, as much as I love his work, was really becoming repetitive in the 80s.

I thought they were middle-of-the-road for Kleinman, honestly. The gothic theme is certainly unique for Bond, but as it's already been said, I think there's a bit too much going on. If I were to rank Kleinman's titles...

1. Goldeneye
2. Casino Royale
3. Die Another Day
4. Skyfall
5. The World is Not Enough
6. Tomorrow Never Dies

Were the titles the last part of Skyfall to be completed? They follow scenes in the film very closely.

I'd imagine so. The song arrived fairly late in the day, at least to the point where Adele was too pregnant to make a video, so I'd guess that the titles were possibly done/completed after the song finally arrived.

Mrs Aural Sects wrote:

I changed my rank from 7/10 to 8.5/10, now that we can mull over it some more.

Python should add a vote cancelling option.

Python wrote:

At 2:22, didn't know what the hell that in theaters but now I take it that's Silva in torture under the Chinese, and his agony with the death pill?

It's part of the motif of the camera pushing into a bullet hole (or sometimes a tombstone) to reveal the innards of a character. With Bond's it's an apocalyptic Skyfall lodge and inside either the young or older Bond looking through a peep hole. With Silva's it's Hydrogen Cyanide burning his insides, with streams of blood forming a skull.

Python wrote:

As said earlier, there's so much going on that it can be overwhelming to the uninitiated, so you can't fully appreciate the sequence until having seen the whole thing. So refreshing after MK12's whole lotta nothing of a title sequence. I hope no future director insists on bringing their own title designer over Kleinman again. With CR and SF, EON should stick to their guns. Kleinman can overreach, but I rather have a guy like him doing that instead of coasting. Binder, as much as I love his work, was really becoming repetitive in the 80s.

Agreed. Kleinman is the true successor to the late Robert Brownjohn, though they're very different in their approach. The former's
a maximalist and the later a minimalist.