'Skip intro': the button at the end of the series headers
In the age of "skip intro" and of the series consumed with speed and eagerness, more and more productions dispense with a basic, the headers. However, its creators continue to defend its audiovisual richness and its symbolism as the beginning of the journey to the universe of a story.
The expansion of international platforms in Spain It has brought a multiplication of audiovisual projects and changes in consumer habits that are also changing the way of producing series and programs.
Gone is waiting every week to see the chapter of your favorite series. "Before, when a series came out, at the time of the head the people were getting ready, it meant that this kind of liturgy was already beginning, "Javier Urosas, technical director at DØ Postproduction, tells Efe.
Although the free-to-air televisions and some platforms continue with the weekly premiere of chapters, watching the series on the fly is an increasingly current norm among viewers. The anxiety is so much that platforms like Netflix they already offer the possibility of viewing their content in fast motion.
“The liturgy is certainly being lost. People do not see them once a week either, on many occasions they see the eight chapters at once. They skip the headline because they really need to know what's going on ”, explains Urosas, who has worked on the two intros of 'The Money Heist', in that of 'The pier' and in that of 'Toy boy', among other.
And that is why, to the detriment of the creators, more and more series decide to omit it and announce the start of production simply with the title, or with a short video with little more than labels.
"Netflix series, for example, increasingly tend to have shorter headers, a single ten-second animation with the logo. The platform has verified the number of people who give the 'skip intro' and sometimes it is not very profitable to do them because they will not see them ”, Natalia Montes, of the User t38 production company, tells Efe. It is the consequence of "paying attention to the algorithm" to "the dictatorship of the machines," he adds.
"The fact that the majority of people jump head does not mean that in others it does not happen, that they see them and they are recorded and remember the head all their lives," says the creator. Pay "too much attention to what the majority says", he adds, "It causes valuable things to be lost."
And it is that a good headboard manages to awaken special feelings. "At an emotional level, the response you get with a header is very cool. It is very instinctive because it is not narrative, you are not telling a story, but you are telling a lot of things at the level of emotions and sensations. The fact that they are images with music creates an emotional bond because it goes to parts of your brain that are not rational, "explains the creator, who in recent years has worked on projects such as 'Temperance', 'The disorder you leave', 'The ministry of time' or the second season of 'Paquita Salas'.
Although in her work the headers only occupy a small portion of her tasks, for Montes they are projects that she loves to work on, she says, because they give “the opportunity to use many different techniques”. "It is a form of audiovisual narration that is really unique and it is a pity that it is lost", aim.
For her, since it is "the first thing you see in a series", an intro "creates that moment of suspension of reality, where you prepare to get into the fantasy of the series." Thus, a good header has to help "so that every time you see it, you disconnect completely because you are going to start watching the series."
In the opinion of Urosas, a header is "the cover letter of the image invoice" and "it has an exclusive point" that some creators still value for what "it has to have an impeccable technical invoice".
"The ones that interest me the most are the ones that when you see them for the first time you understand them in a way; when you see the first chapter you already understand more things and as you go into the story you see that they tell you many more things that at first you did not you saw, "he adds.
