Opening Credits

What's in them?

• Company name e.g. Dreamworks, Motion Pictures
• Main Characters
• Director e.g. A Tarantino Production, A Steven Spielberg Film
• The Title
  

Are Opening credits neccessary?

I think the opening credits of a film are useful as they are the first thing the audience see and if used effectively can set the mood/tone for the film prefectly e.g. the opening credits in 'Psycho' -simple yet hypnotic.

Opening credits can be used to outline the directors intensions and set up expectations of those watching the film. However, I have researched openind credits a bit and I have found out that many films don't have opening credits and some dont even mention the name of the film.

Vanilla Sky, Apocolypse Now, The Ring, The Bourne Identity, and The Mummy Returns are all examples of this.

These are all highly successful films which could be seen as evidence that Opening Credits are unnecessary. However in my thriller I still plan to use opening credits as i think it's a helpful form of introduction for the audience.