Nathan Hurt Locker Title Research

Hurt Locker:

Prior to any footage being shown on screen, we are shown a block of text giving an introduction to the film. It is a quotation from a famous American journalist to give context to the film. The most important part of the text is then highlighted when the rest of it is faded out, to just leave the words "war is a drug". These four words set the scene for the rest of the film, and show the audience that war is an essential element of this film. Even before any video appears on screen, this title clearly introduces the thriller genre through use of sophisticated language and words like 'war' and 'drug' which could be seen as Thriller conventions. War and drugs are both featured in many Thrillers as they influence humans to commit crimes or other bad behaviour found in Thriller films.


The only remaining title in the opening sequence is the location of where the scene takes place in Baghdad, which is the capital of Iraq. This title enables spectators to know where the action is taking place and gives meaning to the war we see going on. The font is dirty white colour, representing the environment in Baghdad, which is quite poverty-stricken and unclean. It is a serif font, which is a type of font much more commonly used to portray less developed countries. This is to show how the country is less modernised, as modern design tends to feature sans serif fonts. This title is overplayed onto the image in order to create a connection between the title and the setting.

The rest of the sequence doesn't feature any titles due to the intense and highly important action that takes place in the opening. The film producers have left out titles from this section of the film as they want the audience to be completely engaged in what's taking place. We will need to ensure that we do they same in any sections of our film that are highly important and require the spectator's complete attention. At any moments of high suspense, it is important not to include any titles that might be a distraction from the action.

At the start of Hurt Locker, we are introduced to many of the main characters in the film. These army members are shown to us at the start of the film and in order to entirely connect with them and start finding our about their characters, no titles are used. This ensures that spectators are focussed on beginning to understand the characters. If there were titles showing the actors names, that might detract from the realism of the film, as we'd see the characters real names, which could make the spectator feel more distant from the film during such an important opening sequence.