History Main / TitleIn

A direction in the script to lay words on the screen. This could be a dateline such as "Amsterdam, 2026", or "Three Days Ago". Primarily used to fix the setting firmly in the minds of the audience. An EpistolaryNovel or {{Diary}} will often provide the place and time for which the character wrote the entry.

-->'''[=GLaDOS=]:''' [[AC:Well, [[ThisIsThePartWhere this is the part where]] [[spoiler:he kills us]].]]
-->'''Wheatley:''' Hello! [[ParrotExposition This is the part where]] [[spoiler:[[ParrotExposition I kill you]]]]! \\
'''[[AC:CHAPTER 9: [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment The Part Where]] [[spoiler:[[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment He Kills You]]]]]]'''
-->[[CosmeticAward Achievement Unlocked]]!: [[OverlyLongGag The Part Where]] [[spoiler:[[OverlyLongGag He Kills You]]]] \\

** The original arcade game has the location of each stage shown at the beginning using stylized text. As an interesting twist, however, each stage intro uses different languages: stages 1 and 2 are in Russian, stage 3 is in Hebrew, stage 4 is in English and the final stage is in ''nordic runes''.
** The 2014 ''Strider'' is a more straightforward example: the name of each section of the city appears right below the in-game radar/map as soon as Hiryu arrives at the area.

-->'''[=GLaDOS=]:''' [[AC:Well, [[ThisIsThePartWhere this is the part where]]]] [[spoiler:[[AC:he kills us]]]]. \\
'''Wheatley:''' Hello! [[ParrotExposition This is the part where]] [[spoiler:[[ParrotExposition I kill you]]]]! \\
'''[[AC:CHAPTER 9: [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment The Part Where]]]] [[spoiler:[[AC:[[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment He Kills You]]]]]]''' \\
[[CosmeticAward Achievement Unlocked]]!: [[OverlyLongGag The Part Where]] [[spoiler:[[OverlyLongGag He Kills You]]]] \\

:: ''c--Capital: New York''\\

A direction in the script to lay words on the screen. This could be a dateline such as "Amsterdam, 2026", or "Three Days Ago". Primarily used to fix the setting firmly in the minds of the audience.

Comes in two major flavors: words on a solid background, usually black (a milder and less {{Anvilicious}} take on the OpeningScroll), or text shown at the bottom of the screen as the camera shows an EstablishingShot of the location. The latter can appear on the screen all at once or one letter at a time, as if typed with a typewriter (bonus points for a fixed-width font).

* In the first ''Literature/CaptainUnderpants'' book, George and Harold order the 3-D Hypno-Ring, which takes four to six weeks to arrive. The next chapter is titled "Four to Six Weeks Later".
* Any book written in diary format will inevitably provide the place and time at which the character supposedly wrote each entry.
* In Creator/ConnieWillis's ''Literature/{{Blackout}} / All Clear'', the chapters don't have names; merely location and date, like "Oxford--April 2060" or "Saltram-on-Sea--29 May 1940".
* Creator/EoinColfer likes to use these to establish scenes in his ''Literature/ArtemisFowl'' series. For example, the prologue of ''The Arctic Incident'' starts with the words: "Murmansk, Northern Russia; two years before".

* ''ComicBook/YTheLastMan'' is a rare comic book example. It gets played with in one issue where Yorick is drugged and the TitleIn panel reads "Where The Fuck Am I?" It's also occasionally used for humor: Yorick complains that the last time he lost his monkey, it took him three hours to track him down, and then the TitleIn reads "Four Hours Later".

* ''VideoGame/BlazBlue'' does this occasionaly to establish the date events are occurring on. [[spoiler: And at one point gives a date 100 years in the game's past to indicate that TimeTravel has occurred.]]
* Done on the (short) {{Loading Screen}}s of the ''VideoGame/MetalGear'' series to let you know what area you are entering. Once things start [[MindScrew getting strange]] in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2'', they may occasionally show such unhelpful names as "New York 52nd Street", "Funabisha City" as you explore the guts of Arsenal Gear.

* Used at the beginning of every mission in the ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty'' series, except for one occasion: You begin the mission ("Of Their Own Accord", ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyModernWarfare2'') in a bunker, evidently being shelled, wounded everywhere around you. You go outside and around a corner to see [[spoiler: [[TheReveal Washington DC in flames]]]]. ''Then'' the TitleIn happens. And thus begins one of the most chilling chapters in the ''Call of Duty'' series to date.

'''Wheatley:''' Hello! [[ParrotExposition This is the part where ]][[spoiler:[[ParrotExposition I kill you]]]]! \\

** ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedII'' mixes it with TitleIn: at the start of each memory sequence, the camera pans over the current city and its name and the current year are displayed. Also, whenever you synchronize with a view point, the camera does an OrbitalShot of the surrounding area, albeit without any subtitles.

** Also used very effectively to deliver a WhamLine. Season 2 starts right where the finale left off; we then transition to a scene of Superboy and M'gann taking down a villain in the sewers. There are subtle indications that something's not right, but its only when the TitleIn says [[spoiler: FIVE YEARS LATER]] you realize what, exactly.

* ''ComicBook/YTheLastMan'' is a rare comic book example. It gets played with in one issue where Yorick is drugged and the TitleIn panel reads "Where The Fuck Am I?". It's also occasionally used for humor: Yorick complains that the last time he lost his monkey, it took him three hours to track him down, and then the TitleIn reads "Four Hours Later".

[[folder:Fan Works]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* In the 2001 remake of ''Film/OceansEleven'', Danny tells Tess he should be out of jail for his parole violation in three to six months. There's a blackout, and then we TitleIn with a card that reads "Three to six months later..."

* ''Series/TheMiddleman'' spoofs this practice constantly:
-->The illegal sublet Wendy shares with another young, photogenic artist.\\\
Middleman Headqua--WHOA! FREAKY!\\\
The Underworld. Time has no meaning.\\\
God, am I underpaid.
* ''Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus'' parodied this with such captions as "One strawberry tart without so much rat in it later".
* ''Series/{{Fringe}}'' absolutely loves to play with these. The giant floating letters that mark locations are [[InSceneTitleText used pseudo-realistically]]. In one instance rain can be seen striking the letters and in another the letters are visible after the camera cuts to a location behind them, showing the letters in reverse.
* At least OnceAnEpisode in ''Series/{{JAG}}'', with the current time (given in military time format, e.g. "0451 Zulu") and location.
* Australian comedy series ''Series/FastForward'' did a send-up of ''Series/{{JAG}}'' where the text writer starts with the time/location only to start rambling on about all kinds of things.

** Used in episode "Midnight" to show how much time had passed between scenes.
** Also used in the season 4 finale "The Stolen Earth" when we hop from across the galaxy to where the Doctor's other companions are.
** Also used quite a lot in the season 5 finale due to all the time jumps involved.

* ''Series/TheYoungOnes'' parodies this in the pilot episode "Demolition": "[[MeanwhileInTheFuture Meanwhile, the next day]]".
* ''Series/RobinHood'' frequently captions its changes of scene, nicknamed the 'arrow of exposition' because the caption flies in from the side of the screen with the sound of an arrow being fired. It does this even when it's already clear where the scene is in the first place ('Nottingham Castle', 'Sherwood Forest', and perhaps most infamously 'The Meadow', among others), and is even on occasion inaccurate.
* The ''Series/StargateSG1'' episode "Absolute Power" has a strange example: a "one year later" caption for a scene that later turns out to be AllJustADream, with considerably less time than that having passed. Apparently [[UnreliableNarrator the captioner lives inside Daniel's head...]]
* In ''Series/TheXFiles'', this usually happens on a bottom corner of the screen when Mulder and Scully first go somewhere for a case. Sometimes the name of the town and the state appears as a second line underneath a specific building they are going to such as a hotel, government building, business, etc. Amusingly, in the episode "Bad Blood" during Scully's recounting of the tale, the location name first appears incorrectly [[FunWithSubtitles until Mulder corrects her]], and then the screen display changes to show the correct location.

* ''Series/BurnNotice'' did this at the start of the pilot to tell us that Michael was in Nigeria, as well as to introduce characters.
* ''Series/{{Alias}}'' always does this, except rather than a subtitle, the camera zooms through the words and into the scene.
* ''Series/GreenAcres'': In one episode, we get a cut to an EstablishingShot of a UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity skyline, as well as the following subtitles:
-->"Can you guess what city this is?"\\
* Blank*\\
"If you guessed New York, you're right!"
* ''Series/{{Warehouse 13}}'' does this, sometimes animating the text for emphasis.
* ''Series/GameOfThrones'' did this with major locations in the pilot, specifically Winterfell, Kings Landing and Pentos so as not to confuse viewers.
* The ColdOpen to each episode of ''Series/ItsAlwaysSunnyInPhiladelphia'' begins with the opening dialogue playing over black title cards with "[Time]", "On a [day]", "Philadelphia, PA".
* The pilot episode of ''Series/{{MASH}}'' has a UniquePilotTitleSequence which announces the setting as:
-->KOREA, 1950\\
a hundred years ago
* In ''Series/{{Helix}}'' which follows an outbreak of TheVirus, at a research facility, the directions usually denote the number of days since the CDC's arrival on-site: "Day 1, Day 2," etc. in black font on a white background, though text also introduces an EstablishingShot of the CDC HQ.
* In the Creator/CirqueDuSoleil series ''Solstrum'', at the beginning of each episode the words "Epsilon Observatory 4:00 GMT" appear on the screen to let the audience know where the initial scene is talking place.
* The ''Series/MiamiVice'' episode "Forgive Us Our Debts" opens with a flashback, with a caption saying "Miami, 1980." Crockett spends the scene wearing a hat to hide his mid-'80s haircut. After the flashback ends, another caption says "Miami, 1986."

[[folder:Web Comics]]

[[caption-width-right:350:[[WebVideo/CinemaSins In case you mistook it for the TV Tropes Foundation in Noodle, New York *ding*]]]]

* Done on the (short) {{Loading Screen}}s of the ''Franchise/MetalGear'' series to let you know what area you are entering. Once things start [[MindScrew getting strange]] in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2'', they may occasionally show such unhelpful names as "New York 52nd Street", "Funabisha City" as you explore the guts of Arsenal Gear.

* The 2009 ''Film/StarTrek'' movie has Iowa or Vulcan tucked away in a corner for a part of the movie, then "Three years later" in the center.

** The Bethesda ''Franchise/{{Fallout}}'' games also do this, ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' more prominently.