Psycho-Title analysis: 1960 & 1998

Psycho was a film published in 1960 by Alfred Hitchcock s, and therefore was produced in black and white, however in 1998 a remake was made but Universal pictures and Imagine entertainment.

Psycho 1960:

During the opening we do not see any physical action being performed by actors instead we only have the movement of the titles as well as non-deigetic sound.Also each title is individually formulated by a white line structure which swipes across the screen in a fast fashion:

This is the structure that the animation upholds in order to show the title transition, it involves a random and unpredictable transition , of which can appear from top/bottom/left/right but the titles titles only ever exit the screen in the opposite direction from where they appeared. This not only adds mystery, but in association with the high pitched sound in the background creates an alert audience, it also makes the audience feel nervous as the title itself "Psycho" is the biggest title on screen throughout the opening sequence and it is also the also the the only title here all the words on screen are bold, therefore exemplifying the importance of this word upon the film.(a word which illustrates insanity and danger to the audience once again making them feel nervous)

And until 32 seconds the tiles stick to this pattern but shortly after they begin sprouting randomly which also coincides with the ever increasing prosodic pitch of the non-diegetic sound playing in the background. As well as the transition constantly changing the titles themselves begin erratically changing their appearance, evidently shown in this picture the title at the top has reshaped before the audience has a chance to read it properly, this title also only ends up staying on the screen for approximately 2 seconds- this contrasts dramatically against another title featured at 41 seconds in- which ends up staying on the screen for 5 seconds , and almost begins to feel awkward as it then does not keep up with the fast paced nature of the violin in the background

Psycho 1998
During the remake of the original psycho there is not much of a change in the intro, however there is one evident change and this is involving the colour of the line effect. In this case it is green, this colour does not necessarily conform with the stereotypical horror genre-which is normally red / black.

Also exactly the same line effect is during the remake- this involves 28 lines being divided into two separate colours (14 green , 14 black), they also swipe both vertically and horizontally across the screen. Similarly to the original psycho we see the main title is bigger than any other title on the screen therefore once again keeping the original aspects of the film- which ultimately did this to focus the attention of the word. Also even more emphasis is added through the disorientation of the word as well (this feature was evident during the original), this effect only jolts for around 1.5 seconds and it ends up jolting in three different directions, this is once again exactly the same as the original.

However there is still differences between the two for example the remake speeds up its opening title sequence quicker in comparison to the original (starts at 20 seconds rather than 32) perhaps this was done in order to startle the audience as they were not expecting such a sudden change in the pace of the opening. Also the line structure diverts into two parts at the same rate (remake is quicker than original) which once again shows the awareness of the producer to intrigue the audience sooner than in the original.

Overall despite the opening hinting at the horror genre in certain aspects (black background / faced paced sound and disorientating titles) I am aware that not only is this opening sequence hard to emulate but also it does not allow for any shot variation nor does it hint at a narrative therefore it would be hard to represent the Horror genre.