What's in a name?

[Lee Morgan]

How important is it to get the correct name for your film? And how do films end up with bad names? What's the best – and worst – film names you've seen?

[Will Blaik]

Roger Corman could pick great names.... "Surf nazis must Die","The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent", "The Fast and The Furious" (yeah he used it first).
Otherwise "Return of The Killer Tomatoes".

Bad Titles.. "Onegin" ( I know it is a Pushkin poem), but how do you pronounce it, Or Hildago ( I think its his horse in the film).

Will

[Martin Lejeune]

Names are difficult, I find there are usually two types of writers, the kind who can't get a word written until they have a title and those who can't find a title until the project is completed.

I'm certainly in the later, I still haven't named Untitled Dystopia, and that was released six months ago. Finding a word or collection of words to sum up everything about the project in one breath is never an easy task, certainly not if you want it to sound like something people will actually watch.

[Ashley Thorpe]

How do you beat - "The incredibly strange creatures that stopped living and became mixed up zombies" ? "An American werewolf in London".

I love B-movie titles, where they have to get the damn synopsis crammed into the title, ha ha. Saying that though, I also really like the wham-bam titles like "Jaws" and "Alien" - that tell you whats for dinner but don't give away the ingredients.

Worst title...Hmmm...smart arse ones like "W-delta-Z" which when written with the proper Greek type Delta made the film look like it was called 'WAZ" (which as we know is a very different type of film altogether...)

(As a note to Martin: I always start a film with two things: The title and then I make a poster, even before I've written a script. Perhaps I have to convince myself it exists before I start looking for it...)

[David Salas]

I love names. And there is nothing better than the finding the perfect name for your film. It's empowering, rewarding and good.

But it's not important...

If the film is good you learn to love the title even when it's as bad as "Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind". Pink Floyd is a shit name for a band, Travels with my Aunt a terrible name for a book. But it doesn't matter, not really. Title-loving is a pecadillo, pleasurable and rewarding, yes, but ultimately tangental.

Good title, lacklustre film: 21 grams.
Good film, lacklustre title: Star Wars.

[Martin Lejeune]

"Eternal Sunset..." is a great name you silly Salas!