Forget the Film, Watch the Titles

Wimbledon

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 09:35:00 PDT

Kyle Cooper designed this title sequence for Wimbledon - a romantic comedy - back in 2004. Not his most spectacular work, not the most discussed, but a clever, entertaining, and, dare we say, perfectly executed title sequence. “It doesn't always have to be about blood and eyeballs”.

Land of the Lost

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 09:17:00 PDT

For the entertaining animated end credit sequence for Land of the Lost – the movie, Alchemy/Axiom's creative team led by Jeremy Dimmock and Brent Watts took some of the more “campy” elements of the original 1970s TV show as their main source of inspiration.

PacTitle to be liquidated

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 08:27:00 PDT

Variety has a short story about the financial problems now threatening Pacific Title & Art Studio - one of the first title design studios in Hollywood whose history dates back to the days of silent film. Pretty bad news that illustrates the title and VFX industry's slowdown caused by the recession. Although it seems that other forces have contributed to the company's demise. We've had these 3 m...

Terminator Salvation

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 03:49:00 PDT

After The Pink Panther 2, Karin Fong worked with Charles Khoury and Imaginary Forces' (IF) creative team on the main title of another iconic and successful movie franchise. Terminator Salvation is the fourth installment of the popular SF series based on the infamous cyborg character. IF's title design draws heavily on the monumental logo of the original 1984 Terminator movie. We interviewed Kar...

Watch the Titles event L.A. was a blast: photos & reports

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 07:23:00 PDT

With five superstar title designers presenting together for the first time, we can safely boast that the Flux/Forget the Film, Watch the Titles event at the Hammer Museum in L.A. was nothing short of legendary. Read shorts report by us, Flux and Evil Monito mag about the event on SubmarineChannel's blog, or see Marla Aufmuth's great photos from the event on Flux' Flickr now.

Coming soon: video i...

Forget the Film, Watch the Titles event in LA, May 20

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 05:11:00 PDT

If you're in or around LA on May 20 you should definitely visit the Hammer Museum for the legendary quarterly Flux Screening Series. Forget the Film, Watch the Titles is co-hosting this evening dedicated to the exciting art of film title sequence design. We've got inspirational show-and-tell presentations by five of the industry's leading film title designers: Kyle Cooper and Danny Yount of Pro...

True Blood

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 09:45:00 PDT

One of the most stunning opening titles made for television in recent years has to be the opener for True Blood – a TV series created by Alan Ball of American Beauty (writer) and Six Feet Under (creator) fame. The show's title sequence by Digital Kitchen explores some of the racial, sexual and religious themes that lurk below the surface of the show's story. We asked DK's creative team how they...

"Watch the Titles" on Dutch tv

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 04:24:23 PDT

SubmarineChannel director Femke Wolting discusses film titles on prime time national Dutch TV in the popular daily talk show 'De Wereld Draait Door'.
watch the exerpt (it's in Dutch, sorry...)

The Days

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 09:35:00 PDT

“In Asia, it is not common to see elaborate or well designed title sequences,” replies title designer and animator Josef Lee of MOJO when I asked him about title design in Asia. His own amazing 2.5 minute end credit sequence for the Singapore gangster drama 'The Days' certainly stands out. Done in a bold graphic style inspired by the visual language of early Hong Kong Kung Fu comics, Lee's titl...

Improved website!

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 08:54:00 PDT

Last week we "soft-launched" the improved Forget the Film, Watch the Titles site. We worked very hard to make it happen. (Still working on some minor issues though, which should be solved by the end of the week). We had to update the links in the RSS feed. Subscribers will notice a lot of "new" articles. Sorry about that. So what's new? New dedicated url: www.watchthetitles.com, full screen vid...

Taking Chance

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 10:47:00 PDT

Under the creative direction of Michael Riley, Shine creates the opening titles for the brand-new HBO project Taking Chance – a movie based on the personal account of a US Lieutenant who accompanied the remains of a young Marine back home to his family in Wyoming. Shine's main titles are based on handwriting and ink flowing on paper. Shine's subtle and poetic approach adds a personal touch whic...

United States of Tara

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 03:11:00 PDT

DUCK's title designer Jamie Caliri (Lemony Snicket's, Madagascar 2) directed the opening title sequence for United States of Tara, a new show - executive produced by Steven Spielberg - which premiered in January on the American network Showtime. We asked Caliri a few questions about the making his animated main title sequence.

7 Millionaires

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 08:13:00 PST

We're featuring three titles by one of Finland's leading post-production facilities Fake Graphics from Helsinki today. For Swedish comedy 7 Miljonaires, Fake developed a 3D animated main title sequence around the theme of a board game with golden pawns that represent personality traits of each of the film's main characters. The whole sequence is wrapped in a glamorous gloss of shiny golden du...

Soap Prince

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 08:05:00 PST

The original opening titles for the romantic Finnish comedy Saippuaprinssi (Soap Prince) feature credits popping out of the pages of a movie script and animation sequences in flip book-, photo sequence-, and ASCII-art style. “Every credit appears in a radical different fashion from the previous one” remembers Santtu Parikka, ex Creative Director of Fake.

Kid Svensk

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 07:42:00 PST

Kid Svensk (That Special Summer) opens with a 3D underwater scene. The movie credits rise to the surface in the midst of air bubbles in these 2007 opening titles for this Finnish children's movie. First in a series of 3 main titles by Fake Graphics.

Cut&Paste Digital Design Tournament 2009

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 09:02:00 PST

Just posted this article on SubmarineChannel's blog about the Cut&Paste Digital Design Tournament 2009. Could be an interesting event for any of you motion designers out there. Entry deadlines: US - Jan. 23; EU/Asia/Pacific - Feb. 20.

St. Trinian's

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 09:35:00 PST

The movie St. Trinians is the most recent film adaptation of the cartoon series St Trinian's School created by Ronald Searles, about an English boarding school for girls. The London-based Emmy-nominated animation studio VooDooDog (Love in the Time of Cholera, Nanny McPhee) created the cartoon-esque title sequence inspired by Searle's work.

Mad Money

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 09:27:00 PST

For the end credit sequence of Mad Money, Shine's art director Michael Riley re-combined some of the most iconic elements from US dollar bills - the decorative patterns, the symbols, the portraits - and 'funkyfies' them by adopting a "mad" contrasting color scheme.

Gattaca

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 08:51:00 PST

One of the titles Michael Riley says he's most proud of is Andrew Niccol's intelligent SF drama Gattaca. The titles were created at Imaginary Forces in 1997, with "nothing digital other than Illustrator to set some type," as Riley explains. "Oversized models were built to make the fingernails and hair look huge."

Along Came a Spider

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 07:22:00 PST

First in a series of main titles directed by Michael Riley, who has been directing film and TV main titles since 1991. He directed the simple but very suspenseful opening credits for Along Came a Spider back in 2001, while still an art director and partner at Imaginary Forces. The titles were based on close-up shots of a monitor, explains Riley...