Art of the Title: Elementary

Elementary

• The title sequence starts with the camera tracking a clear marble through a contraption. The show is about a modern-day Sherlock Holmes who is a character known for his unconventional ways of thinking and solving his mysteries. The ball could represent his brain because it is clear and follows a different path to get to the destination.
• The marble also helps to hint at Sherlock's personality in the TV show because at the end of the titles when the marble reaches the end and is zoomed in to, the title 'Elementary' appears which means basic or easy. The audience can guess that the round-about way of thinking is something that Sherlock would consider simple, portraying him as a complex and intelligent individual.
• The Actors/Actresses' names emerge in pieces that become a whole. This can illustrate pieces being put together to finish a puzzle, or maybe clues put together to solve a crime. The font is a mix between Courier, a type-writer font and Times New Roman, a commonly used word processor font. This could represent old and new, i.e. the old well known Sherlock character vs. new modern relatable environment.
• There are a lot of connotations for Crime and Justice in the opening. The gun, which presents an image of murder, the cage dropping on the figurine, which shows the criminal being caught (justice) and the numbered card on the ground beside the mess that was made is a convention used for detectives when gathering evidence.

Because Elementary is a TV show it doesn't start the titles with the production company although there are some that do (e.g. Détectives). It follows the conventions for TV which is the main actors and creators before the name of the show (but it isn't always in that order).

The length used for the titles is short which is what we want in our film but maybe slightly shorter. We will also have to include production companies and directors in our titles which is something this show doesn't have. What we can take from this is the symbolism they use in the titles. We can use mise-en-scene to represent our genre and story well.

The order of titles are:

Main Actor #1

Main Actress #2

Main Actor #3

Main Actor #4

Created by...

Title of the Programme