The title sequence begins in an airport. It is an animation and uses thin, silhouetted people moving across a blue background. A thin young man, in casual clothes is the first to appear from the left of the screen. The actor’s name appears - Leonardo DiCaprio. He watches pilots and stewardesses go by. Suddenly a close-up shows that his clothes change from casual to a pilot’s uniform. A man in a suit and hat watches him as he follows the stewardesses. The actor’s name (Tom Hanks) appears on-screen. Then there’s a close-up of several pairs of feet - the stewardesses. The man runs after the pilot but the pilot escapes - setting up the film and showing the audience that the film’s name is also the name of the game that is being played by the pilot - Catch Me If You Can (basically the older man is going to be chasing the younger one - but why?)
The clever use of lines means the animators can portray several scenes in one. An example of the clever use of animation is when (picture below) we have a close-up of the pilot, then we zoom out to the full picture and notice that there is a man reading a newspaper sitting on a chair which has been drawn with the lines. Then Tom Hanks’ name appears and the man’s head swivels round to follow the pilot. Next, there is an elevator and the stewardesses are going down on it, then close-up of their feet as they walk. Picture below: the pilot takes a look behind him and realises someone’s following him and runs up a staircase which falls behind him so that the man in suit can’t chase him any more. Stairs fall, man watches as line shoots up - to the movie title.
More use of the clever lines - this time a taxi on the road going under a bridge - lines from name representing a highway bridge.
After the title of the film the background changes colour for each different chase scene.
The scenes change from an airport to a swimming pool, followed by a hospital, where the young man (Leonardo DiCaprio) has changed into a doctors coat with stethoscope. Still we see the older man in a suit chasing him. Still the young man escapes. More scenes are illustrated in which the young man changes into different clothes, but the older man in the suit still chases him - eventually the sequence ends with them running on top of the globe, chasing all over the world.
Sound
There is no dialogue just music in the title sequence. The music is by John Williams, a composer of many film scores. It is retro, with saxophone and clicking fingers, typical of 1950’s music.
The music starts with a simple, quick tune which is repeated using a xylophone and clicking fingers. Then there is a jazz session and then the opening tune is repeated. This sequence of repetitive tune followed by a jazz session gradually builds in pitch and volume to add tension to the chase scenes in the title sequence. At the end the music is quieter and slower, suggesting the chase is coming to an end.
Titles
The titles are unusual as the font has long lines coming from some of the letters, up and down the screen. Two different fonts are used to separate names from jobs. Up until the title of the film “Catch Me If You Can” the font has been in black or bold-black. In the title of the film, the ‘Me’ is written in white which fades and moves like a cloud as the animated aeroplane passes close by. Then different coloured fonts are used for the rest of the titles, sometimes to contrast with the background, sometimes to be the same colour as the animations.
PS - the man in the suit is a 1950's detective.
Here are some screenshots from this title sequence:
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