Opening credits

Common opening credits order

There are other variations, but this is just the most common order...

·         (NAME OF THE STUDIO): Name of the studio that is distributing the film and may or may not have produced it (Walt Disney Pictures, Columbia, Lions Gate, Universal, etc.).

·         (NAME OF THE PRODUCTION COMPANY): Name of the production company that actually made the film or name of the investment groups or companies that financed a substantial part of the film (usually credited as "in association with" or "A (studio name) production.").

·         (PRODUCER NAME) PRODUCTION or/and (director only) A FILM BY (DIRECTOR NAME):  Director's first credit, often "A film by XY or "a XY film".

·         STARRING: Principal actors, (Sometimes the stars' and director's credits will be reversed, depending on the star's deal with the studio; sometimes, as in the Rodgers and Hammerstein films, or as in all three film versions of Show Boat, or, as in many of Disney's films, the title of the film will be shown before the names of its actors).

·         (FILM'S TITLE): Name of the film.

·         FEATURING: Featured actors/actresses

·         CASTING or CASTING BY: Casting director.

·         MUSIC or MUSIC COMPOSED BY or ORIGINAL SCORE BY: Composer of music.

·         PRODUCTION DESIGN or PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Production designer.

            As a variation some of the below may be noted:

1. SET DESIGN
2. COSTUMES or COSTUMES BY or GOWNS (older movies)
3. HAIRDRESSER
4. MAKE-UP ARTIST
5. SOUND RECORDING (older movies)
6. VISUAL EFFECTS DIRECTOR or VISUAL EFFECTS BY

·         EDITOR or EDITED BY: Editor

·         DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Director of photography.

·         PRODUCER or PRODUCED BY, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER:  Producers, co-producers, executive producers, 'also produced by' (credited for various reasons according to contracts and personal scrutiny of the principal producer). Often, though, the name of the producer will be the next-to-last opening credit, just before the director's name is shown.

• BASED ON THE BOOK (PLAY, GRAPHIC NOVEL etc.) BY or FROM A PLAY/BOOK BY (older movies) (If based on a book or other literary work) or BASED ON THE CHARACTERS BY or BASED ON THE CHARACTERS CREATED BY (If based on characters from a book or other media)

• STORY or STORY BY: Person who wrote the story on which the script is based, gets "story by" credit, and the first screenplay credit, unless the script made substantial changes to the story.

• WRITER(S) or WRITTEN BY: Screenplay writers. The Writers Guild of America allows only three writing credits on a feature film, although teams of two are credited as one, separated on the credits by an ampersand ("X & Y"). If each works independently on the script (the most common system), they are separated by an "and". If more than two persons worked on the screenplay, the credits may read something like "screenplay by X & Y and Z and W" X and Y worked as a team, but Z and W worked separately.

• DIRECTOR or DIRECTED BY: Director. The Directors Guild of America permits a film to list only one director, even when it is known that two or more worked on it. Except in very rare cases (a death in mid-production) there is only one directing credit.

...However in recent Hollywood films, like: Inception (2010); Avatar (2009) and The Dark knight (2008) they have followed the recent trend of having no opening credits, perhaps to depict a sense of realism to get straight into the film... or not as in Inception, the film begins in a different realm in a dream so leaving out opening credits gave it a surrealist feel as you were thrust into a film knowing nothing about it...