RESEARCH - Timeline of Opening Titles

The common convention of a thriller movie opening sequence in terms of the order is as follows:

• Production icon
• Distribution icon
• Distribution in title sequence
• Production in title sequence
• Actor 1
• Actor 2
• Film title
• Actor 3
• Actor 4
• Actor 5 Etc
• Casting
• Costume
• Music supervisor
• Music by
• Editing by
• Production designer
• Director of photography
• Executive producers
• Written by
• Director

We have looked at the opening title sequence of 'The Roommate' and the order slightly differs from the usual convention however it still generally follows it. This is a timeline of the title sequence:

Distributor Ident 

Distributor in title sequence

Production Company

Film Title

Actor 1

Actor 2

Actor 3

Actor 4

Actor 5 Etc

Casting Director

Music Supervisor 

Costume Designer

Music by

Production Designer

Editor

Director of Photography

Executive Producers 

Producers

Written by

Director

In this specific film, we noticed that the film title was placed before the names of any of the actors/actresses. We believe this is because there are no majorly famous stars involved. The distributor is shown first because they are the main source of money. The writing generally fades in and out in a very subtle manner. This isn't always the case for thrillers as they are usually more bold and striking to reflect upon the genre.