opening crawl
Scrolling title text
An opening crawl is text that scrolls vertically across the screen at the start of a film, establishing backstory or setting.
The term is most associated with Star Wars, whose opening crawls—yellow text receding into a starfield—became iconic: The opening crawl explained the political situation before the action began.
- Star WarsIconic space fantasy franchise
- far awayAt considerable distance
- textWritten or printed words
- scrollWound document of parchment
- prologueIntroductory literary section
long time ago · intro · yellow · space · space opera · galaxy · fanfare · main theme · John Williams · episode · episode number · saga · title · Lucasfilm · scrolling · backstory · exposition · starfield
- film techniquesdolly zoom, closeup, close-up, fade, wide shot
- Star Wars musicImperial March, main theme, end credits, victory celebration
- storytelling techniquesflashback, voiceover, subplot, flash forward, twist
narrative position
opening crawldenouement
Story's final unraveling
postscript · end credits · epilogue · closing credits · final scene
open, crawl, opened, opens, opener, openers, opening, openings, openly