the rajni title card | sonic identity #1
k balachander, ian fleming and george lucas. imagine what they would’ve created together when they sat in a studio in chennai?
hint: inside the studio were a less-known director and a not-so-famous music director.
the sonic identity of a household name was sealed in just such a way! a title card that sets cinema screens across the world on fire. setting off an uproar of ardent and devout fans, ages ranging 6 to 60, from beggars to billionaires.
superstar rajni.
with fonts and colours remain unchanged for over 3 decades despite the occasional slingshot to the moon.
the origin!
1992. rajnikanth was a well-established staple across the country, with the name rousing mania whenever mentioned. just knowing that a movie was a ‘rajni padam’ was enough to be a crowd-puller. the name was made.
collaborating for the first time with the superstar was director suresh krissna, who wanted their project ‘annamalai’ to have an extra element that captured this ‘craze’. he had noticed the roars and cheers of the crowds in cinema halls when the name was displayed during the opening credits. suresh wanted more. he wanted to create an experience that was specifically designed to amp this cheer.
ironically, rajnikanth was opposed to the idea, finding it a little too loud of an announcement of himself to be tasteful. then his mentor, and producer of annamalai, the legend k balachander was introduced to the concept, he was all for the idea. a personality was in place. it was only fitting that it was celebrated.
thus, in 1992, when the first screenings of annamalai lit up the screens, the iconic annamalai background music played, accompanied by an animation of stars and lights that would form the iconic ‘Superstar Rajni’ title on screen.
crowds went wild. the identity now had a signature.
cinema is sound… AND light!
it’s not just in sound that the identity lies, either. while there have been iterations(lingaa and enthiran to just name a couple), a ‘rajni title card’ means blue dots, forming ‘SUPER STAR’ in a simple stroke font, with the letters R, A, J, N and I, and their regional language counterparts in yellow, shooting through into the middle of the frame in a large block font, eventually appearing as RAJNI in the middle of the screen. over time, while clarity of film and digital formats have improved, and the choice of background music have been experimented with(see petta, when anirudh ravichander scored for thalaivar for the very first time), this style has stayed the exact same.
blue dots and a yellow block font? rajni title card.
while it’s not uncommon to have titles and ranks among actors, there isn’t a single other personality who truly has a sonic or visual identity built to the scale and consistency that our thalaivar has. amitabh bachchan, kamal hassan, chiranjeevi, venkatesh daggubatti, mohanlal, mammooty, name your legend. you might not be able to think of a single, unique, sounding call that heralds their arrival.
all said and done, rajnikanth’s way… is a way of his own!