The Simplest, Cheapest Tool to Elevate A Story

By Ian Long

The (possibly misleading) opening intertitle of Fargo (Joel & Ethan Cohen, 1996)

​Many hidden or overlooked methods can deepen the impact of stories.

My Advanced Storytelling Techniques workshop (October 17 and 18) covers a host of them (CLICK HERE to find out more).​

One strikingly simple example is the addition of chapters or intertitles. Used creatively, these can add tension, shape perception, deepen a story’s emotional impact, and provide endings which reframe our expectations.

And all virtually for ​nothing. No extra shooting is required: just some creative thinking and digital compositing (or even hand-lettering).

Stanley Kubrick's The Shining approached intertitles in fresh and creative ways, revealing just some of their wider possibilities.

Let's look in detail at how it used them.

What’s at stake in The Shining?

The film's core is Jack Torrance’s descent into madness, and the threat this poses to his wife and child (and himself). The setting is the rambling, isolated Overlook Hotel.

This appears solid and respectable but is gradually revealed as a nightmare zone of visions and visitations, whose layout and dimensions are themselves fuzzy and fluid.
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The Shining achieved its horror effects without using standard Gothic imagery.

So if fear, chaos and confusion are the film’s primary emotions, how do the intertitles add to all this, while sidestepping typical genre methods?

A sober beginning

The intertitles start by focusing on events in the story. The first title we see is:

The letters appear, in medium-sized white text, on ​a black background which briefly obscures the action.

​This is followed a little later by:

At this stage the intertitles seem solid and trustworthy, even obvious.

We may assume that a succession of similarly sensible messages will appear through the story.

 We don’t think they'll turn rogue and start behaving in strange, unruly ways. Which is, of course, what Kubrick is relying on. 

The switch to time

The next intertitle is:

The category-switch to a time rather than an event is subtle and may seem a minor disruption to the established pattern.

​But as soon as it happens, the timeframe narrows to days of the week:

Followed by:

“SATURDAY”

"MONDAY”

and

“WEDNESDAY”

Each time a pattern is established, it’s subverted (the order of the days is itself odd).

We may latch onto the ‘facts’ that the intertitles provide, but knowing which day the events occur on doesn't really aid our comprehension.
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Rather than helping us to understand the film’s events, the information is another complicating factor, undermining our ability to make sense of things. 

Time speeds up

Finally, the intertitles move from days to hours:

“4PM”

And finally:

This all underlines our strong sense that we're racing towards a denouement.

What are the intertitles doing?

They're twisting a basic means by which we navigate the world – our sense of time.

Filmmakers are usually all-too-keen to demonstrate that their fictional world is realistic and watertight.
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The Shining knows this and uses its intertitles to increase its chaotic effect, adding more fuel to an experience which is already hectic and visceral, accelerating and jumbling cues, keeping us continually off-balance.

The font also tells the story

Font styles have clear emotional and psychological effects.

Horror-oriented fonts can infer zombie, ghost, vampire, and other specific subgenres. Others signal Science Fiction, Western or period settings.

But Helvetica, the font used for The Shining’s intertitles, is so neutral and ubiquitous that we barely register it.

Like the similar Arial, it was designed for corporate communication and  branding, to keep messages clear, objective and functional: free of emotional or tonal implications. 

In a word, it’s “vanilla.” Its content seems somehow impartial, formally sanctioned.

Imagine if Kubrick had used a font like Shlop:

Which would have set us up for an encounter with the Swamp Thing.

Or maybe Blood Lust:

With its slasher connotations.

These would have over-determined the nature of the story and made it feel kitsch.

Kubrick could also have been increased the text size as the tension escalated. But maintaining a modest, medium size added to the illusion that its content was a fixed point in a psychic storm.

How sound can intensify intertitles

The Shining's first intertitles appear without disturbing the film's sound, which continues smoothly underneath. 

But later in the story they arrive with a clash of cymbals, which produces a jarring, almost aggressive effect.

What began as a ‘neutral’ vehicle to convey information has become a tool for all-out psychological destabilisation.

The workshop

In the workshop, we'll look at more creative uses of intertitles, whether your story would benefit from them, and how best to apply them.

But they're just one of many techniques we’ll explore: all designed to enhance your stories and make them even more attractive to producers and audiences.



Tell us your thoughts about intertitles below!

Which other films use them in clever and creative ways?

How would you like to apply them?