Title Sequences for Contemporary Television Serials

This article appears in the Oxford Handbook of New Audiovisual Aesthetics edited by John Richardson, Claudia Gorbman, and Carol Vernallis. This chapter focuses on the main title sequences of recent television serials commissioned by the North American premium cable channel Home Box Office. At around 90 seconds’ duration, these sequences buck the trend much in evidence elsewhere on television of minimizing such elements drastically and placing such identifiers later in the show. An exploration of the functions and characteristics of television title sequences is followed by an introduction to commercial television marketing and approaches to the audiovisual. The chapter then provides detailed analyses of the title sequences for The Sopranos (1997-2007), with music by Alabama3/A3 (“Woke Up This Morning”) and Six Feet Under (2001-05), with music by Thomas Newman. The relationship between the aesthetic character of the sequences and the institutional context of the serials in question is explored, suggesting that such sequences function as signifiers of the commissioning channel's brand identity.