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Kyle Cooper's title sequences are often such a dramatic entree to a film, they prompted one critic to say: "Forget the Film, Watch the Titles." The sequences often form a metaphor for the theme of the film: they encapsulate the story, provide a taster or present significant symbols.
When creating a credit sequence, Cooper says he considers budgetary constraints, the director's vision and the film's mood. To introduce the mood, Cooper selects sophisticated typographies and sets them in motion, synchronised to carefully chosen scores. Hence, the letters in the title Twister spin and fly in a simulated whirlwind. "They're extremely intricate," Cooper says of his sequences. "But more than anything, they elicit some kind of emotional response from the audience."
The design for most of these sequences is manic, even fractured at times, as in the case of Se7en, or wildly self-replicating in The Island of Dr Moreau. The opening sequence of Se7en shows ominous images of razor blades, disfigured hands and washes of blood amidst the pages of a serial killer's scrapbook as he catalogues his crimes. Yet there is a simplicity in sequences like The Joy Luck Club which aptly illustrates a reflective mood. Other title sequences in this compilation are the kaleidoscopic Avengers, the eloquent Donnie Brasco, Sphere, Mimic, an explosive Mission Impossible, Nightwatch, the futurislic Gattaca and MIFF 1999 selection, Arlington Road.