When I say ‘old’ I’m actually referring to as late as the early 90s, before I guess digital titling methods were more accessible and convenient. I was watching a movie from 1989 and the opening titles are highly animated but still ‘shaky’, especially when the name credits show up. Like you can notice them moving almost as if a live camera were focusing in on them.
I guess the actual question I’m technically asking here is how title sequences for pre-digital movies were done.
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If it’s that late, then it’s likely intentional for artistic reasons, unless it was an incredibly low budget film. Steady rolling credits were figured out decades prior to that. Can you tell us the movie?
That said prior to digital tech, they were generally printed on paper and rolled along in front of a camera. They used rigs that locked everything in place, so everything was in focus and not shaky or moving erratically (for example, the opening crawl of Star Wars).
It looks like it was filmed with a camera because that’s exactly what happened. Prior to computers, if you wanted graphics or text in the movie, you’d paint it and then film it. The scrolling credits at the end is actually physically moving past a camera.
If you wanted to put text over other footage (say for the opening credits), you could combine two films using something called an Optical Printer. Basically it you point two projectors directly at another camera, so it the final film is a combination of the two reels.
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