Charmed Opening Credits | Original Concept | Season 7

Happy 25th Charmeversary! It’s been a minute (sorry), but I finally got to finish the season 7 credits. Gonna sound like a broken record, but man it’s just getting more and more difficult to keep up with this style and maintain its authenticity in later seasons. Power usage used to be special (attack/protect) and was filmed in such a unique way, as if the magic was somewhat independent from the witch, it was there to assist in desperate moments, and sometimes would even take the witch by surprise. In later seasons, powers are used more loosely, like they’re a mere extension of the witch, the focus became on the characters, not the powers, in those scenes, which is why I felt so lucky season 6 still had a few good power shots that I could use.

I believe I did not use anything past 7x07, so I did better than last season with that. I thoroughly enjoyed working on the new overhead title shot; finally something with just the three current Charmed Ones! As we all know, Phoebe doesn’t have all her powers this season, and I ended up using the clip of her fighting her evil counterpart for a few reasons: 1- show her fighting skills. 2- Acknowledge her dark side, which she’s struggled with before. 3- Emphasizing her internal conflict (forcing premonitions to find baby daddy, work stress, giving up on love for the 100000th time, etc…)

Goodbye Nick Correy, you have been replaced by Demon/Avatar face for Phoebe's premonition. I was somewhat referencing the Hecate clip from the s1 opening credits.

Couldn’t resist adding another Prue reference. This is technically from season 5, so I didn’t really go that far back for it, and the fact that it’s the ONLY shot featuring Paige and Prue (in human form) in frame!!! Side note: You remember in “Cat House” (SPOILER ALERT)… when Paige meets dog Prue, and for some reason Prue doesn’t remember that. We can argue that it wasn’t real time travel, but um… excuse me, wedding cake topper smashed…. Kit was attacked… those affected the present, but not dog Prue meeting a time-traveling Phoebe and her red-headed companion? Just going for a funny moment? No continuity? Alrighty then…. But I digress…

Unlike seasons 5 and 6, there’s no recent photo of the three sisters together, so instead of wasting time photoshopping a fake one, I thought let’s just keep the same one from last season. Instead, I tried to focus more on the hug right before that. For a show that started with three sisters who happened to be witches, you definitely see less group hugs near the end… mostly just lets-get-this-over-with and cheap-sex-and-the-city-knockoff moments… VERY rarely do you see them truly bounding anymore, mostly just vanquishing demons quickly so that Phoebe can get back to work. Hmm almost like… they are… witches… who happen to be… sisters… Good job, Brad, good job indeed -_-

Oh, and another fun clip was stitching the three (or six?) parallel sisters facing each other. It's a shame evil Piper was only there for 2 seconds, not even a single line.

Anyway, in all seriousness, the last two seasons are my least favorite, but I think making an original concept opening like this adds more sentimental value to it, brings it slightly closer to the amazingness that is seasons 1-4.

Seven down, one to go…

#charmed