“You know, like nunchuck skills, bow hunting skills, computer hacking skills... Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills.” – Napoleon

Saucy credits garnish high school foodstuff alongside screamingly mundane high school ephemera serving as cringe-worthy currency all the while inducing smile after smile. Aaron Ruell, who also plays Kipland "Kip" Ronald Dynamite, designed the opening credit sequence for Jared and Jerusha Hess' "Napoleon Dynamite" with the White Stripes' "We're Going to be Friends" easing in childlike qualities.

We had an opportunity to speak with Hess about the unique openings to his films. This week follows on from "Gentlemen Broncos," with a discussion on the genesis of the Napoleon title sequence.

Art of the Title: Tell us how this sequence came about.

Jared Hess: When we made Napoleon it was very low budget and we made the whole thing for under $400,000; when we screened the film at Sundance we did not have an opening title sequence at all - it opened cold. It went from a black screen right to Napoleon standing in front of his house waiting for the school bus, and we had a very basic credit roll at the end of the film.

When we sold the film to Fox Searchlight I remember they test screened the film a couple of different times and one of the silly questions that kept coming up in the focus groups afterwards (adopts voice of Brutus from Gentlemen Broncos) "What year does this take place? I mean it's like everybody's wearing clothes from the 80's and the 90's, yet they have the Internet, I'm really confused." So this question came up a few times and the Fox Searchlight marketing people were like "maybe we could do something to say that this is happening now" because I kept explaining to them that I grew up in a small town in Idaho and that things are more, you know, functional and fashion doesn't matter as much, so those things are very normal.

For whatever reason people didn't understand that rural way of life, so Fox said "why don't we do an opening title sequence." I wanted it to feel organic and match the film, so 8 months after the film had been completed and before the theatrical release, we shot the title sequence. It's kind of weird, but because they wanted to show that the film takes place now, there's a title where a hand pulls Napoleon's school ID out of a wallet and it says '2004' - that was like the big deal for Fox, hoping that would put to bed anyone’s question as to when it happened.

We filmed it in my cinematographer's basement. Aaron Ruell, the guy that plays Kip, is an amazing photographer and one of my closest friends so I spoke with him about the design. I really wanted to do a cool title sequence and after talking with him about a couple of ideas he just kind of ran with it and came up with the food and plates and tiles etc., and I knew a guy in my neighborhood who owned a carpet shop and we went and got all the backgrounds there. It was really low budge' man. It was shot just with a 35mm camera and a Kino Flo in the basement.

We actually had Jon Heder placing all the objects in and out [of frame], and then showed it to Searchlight who really liked it and thought it was great, but some lady over there was like "There are some hangnails, or something -the hands look kinda gross! It's really bothering me, can we re-shoot some of those? We'll send you guys a hand model." We were like "WHAT?!" This of course was my first interaction with a studio at all, so they flew out a hand model a couple weeks later, who had great hands, but was five or six shades darker than Jon Heder. So we reshot, but they're now intermixed, so if you look there are like three different dudes hands (our producer's are in there too.) It all worked our great though and was a lot of fun.

There is one title shot with a trapper keeper with the micro machines, and in grade school me and my buddies would hide stuff in there. Those were some of the initial ideas, to have the credits be these embedded objects that were a part of Napoleon's life.

ATS: Which is very similar to Bronco's titles in that setting.

JH: Absolutely. Both films geographically are very similar -we shot Napoleon up in Idaho and Broncos was shot in Utah- so a lot of the inner mountain west aesthetic is present. You can tell so much about your characters before you even see them onscreen through a title sequence and we knew that with Broncos we wanted to really begin to tell who this person was and what he was into by showing the pulpy sci-fi novels.

ATS: And what about Nacho?

JH: The titles are super over the top, but once we found that song "Religious Man," we knew it would be a great way to open the film. That came from the editing, where initially we had all this footage of the kid with a lot more dialog, but we ended up just cutting it down. We shot a few extra pieces like him building his cape, after the fact, just to massage it with the other shots we already had. I feel like so many titles sequences are ultimately a waste of time, so you might as well be using that time to help tell your story.

ATS: In researching Napoleon's opening we found that Aaron Ruell's inspired title design was misattributed to title design legend Pablo Ferro but that Ferro did work on the film. How did this opportunity come about?

JH: Pablo Ferro happened to be working at the title house that did our closing credits. Learning that he did the titles for "Dr. Strangelove" was really cool. Pablo designed the handwritten "Napoleon Dynamite" title that appears over Napoleon's desk during the current event scene [about three minutes into the film]. That was the only opening title we had when we screened at Sundance. When we went back and shot the stuff Ruell designed, some people incorrectly assumed it was Ferro.

ATS: So what's next?

JH: We have been busy working on a Napoleon Dynamite animated series right now that will be on FOX. We're finishing up the pilot, it has all the original people from the film doing the voices and we're writing all of it ourselves. We always felt that these characters warranted 'the further adventures.' I mean the movie, to be honest, is kind of a live action cartoon anyway so it's fitting to continue the adventures in a cartoon world.

“Cyclops there. Cyclops there. Cyclops there... Oh, my holy crap! Surveillance doe's. I hate those.” – Brutus

'Classic' science fiction illustrations repurposed as faux forgotten novels, exhibited on sentimental backgrounds, color each credit for the opening title sequence of Jared Hess' very funny "Gentlemen Broncos."

We had an opportunity to speak with Hess about his films, and their unique openings. Our interview continues next week with musings on his feature film debut, "Napoleon Dynamite."

Art of the Title: Tell us about your initial ideas for this sequence.

Jared Hess: We had the idea when we wrote the screenplay that we wanted the opening credits sequence to be a bunch of science fiction book covers where the credits were embedded in place of where the titles used to be, so while we were shooting the film my production designer Richard Wright and people on the production side were going through existing artwork to see what was available. The idea was to scan and tweak them and then print up new book covers and shoot them at the end of production.

We were first looking for stuff that looked right and helped set the tone but we quickly learned that it was going to be difficult to clear the rights, a lot were part of family estates. Luckily the artwork that I liked the most was from a guy named Kelly Freas and they were able to contact his wife -he's passed away- so most of the artwork in the title sequence is stuff he had drawn for different science fiction journals as well as books. What was weird was that a couple of the characters he'd drawn looked liked the people in our film, like Jemaine's book. The one we have for Sam Rockwell (a piece by David Lee Anderson) also bears a striking resemblance. It was kind of uncanny.

Original covers and artworks (Click to Enlarge)

ATS: So what's your approach to directing these sequences? How much planning are you doing? Are you storyboarding it?

JH: Once you get the paperwork back from legal knowing what the billing order is, you can then start to piece together what you're shooting. We looked at the book designs, and just tried to be smart [in choosing] the images, and what's coming before and after, just being conscious of making stuff work well when it's cut together. Off the cuff, we walked around one of our sets, knowing what the covers were, just looking for the right backgrounds to showcase some variety; these were just static shots. We were very free form and in the moment, and we spent a day shooting, just like the Napoleon [opening].

I mean for Broncos we had all the books printed up and then went and shot them in the kitchen and living set of the geodesic dome home that Benjamin and his mother live in. Literally we showed up at 7am and said "this book looks good here, let's shoot it right here" or it looks good against this background or couch and we would shoot multiple takes not knowing what would work the best when it was finally cut together, so we gave ourselves a little wiggle room. Towards the end it felt like we shot every good background, like were stretching a little bit in places.

Filming the title sequence (Click to Enlarge)

ATS: It also helps that the book covers look real.

JH: Richard did an awesome job, but part of it too is that you're looking at the books dead on. I wanted to be able to see the whole book so that you could recognize that it was a book. If we were tight on the name or where the credit was, it maybe wouldn't register as a book, and shooting it in 1.85:1 you then have a lot of dead space and you've got to figure out what to put there. He scanned these old books and then he and a graphic designer buddy of his (most of the time) put in completely different fonts and colors than what was was originally there. He spent a lot of time on it. He ran over a couple of them with his car and scraping them on the ground to try and make them looked 'lived in.'

The legal department at Fox -because of the different guilds- were really trying to push us to use the same font for everybody and we thought that was lame. We reassured them that everything would be the same size and take up the same amount of space on screen, but we had to use different fonts obviously. We did end up using the same font for the "Written By" and "Directed by" text because of worries from the legal department. It's weird dude.

Hess and I drew a lot of inspiration for the sci-fi aspects of the film from old paperback sci-fi book covers that we would file through in used book stores. Many obscure titles from the 60s-80s have amazingly creative art; some brilliant, some really dumb -but funny dumb. I started buying all my favorites to decorate the office and use as reference. I could usually buy a dozen for a couple bucks. I think that one day, while admiring some of the weirder covers, Hess decided that it would make a nice title sequence.

Artist Frank Kelly Freas (Click to Enlarge)

So over the course of filming, with the help of the producer's assistant David Dilley, I scoured bookstores and the internet to figure out who had painted our favorites which was not such an easy task. The majority of the art was not attributed to anyone and many of the publishers of the books were either out of business or had been gobbled up by larger mega-publishers over the years. The majority of the titles we managed to obtain for use are painted by the great illustrator Kelly Freas.

Book layouts by Peter Sattler (Click to Enlarge)

We wanted the books to look as authentic as possible, so we spent several weeks trying out different fonts and layouts. I was able to convince my friend, Peter Sattler, a very talented former graphic designer -who played a big part in the creation of this title sequence- to head up the layout of graphics, etc. Then we applied all the final book covers to actual books and aged them down to look the same as they do in those dusty Salt Lake City second hand book shops. Most of the art chosen for the covers either has some vague representation or relation to what the credited person's role was on-or-in the film or has a slight resemblance to the people themselves.

First production book (Click to Enlarge)

It seemed appropriate to film the books in Benjamin Purvis' house. It was a nice way to introduce the viewer to the bizarre contrast of Judith's pastel, crafty, wholesome home and the Ben's uncomfortably weird sci-fi imagination that was nurtured within it. And the music just drove the nail on the head. It's a catchy tune with a dated sound about the far out future. The lyrics are pretty amazing, "magic pills and judgement day"...I can imagine that Benjamin could have written them himself.

ATS: Have you ever had an idea for a title sequence but the technology isn't quite there yet eg., retro 3D?

JH: I really haven't...I guess I think a little more lo-fi than that. I think that most of the title work that interests me is stuff you have to photograph, and those have been the ones I've always enjoyed, like the opening sequence to "To Kill A Mockingbird."

ATS: There is a manifesto-like quality to your sequences where the emphasis is on humor; where does that come from?

JH: The three films I've done so far are comedies and to me it's important to let the audience know right away that things are going to be silly, and any way that can be done to convey that -taking advantage of setting the tone of the film in the title sequence- is important to me. As far as the comedy, some of the stuff we found for the book covers wasn't even really sci-fi related, especially the card I picked for myself that says "A Jared Hess Film" -it has an old dude in a pioneer bonnet sharpening a knife- that was the weirdest thing and Kelly Freas had all kinds of junk like that, and it kinda blew my mind.

On set photos 1 (Click to Enlarge)

ATS: How did you start out as a filmmaker?

JH: I come from a big Mormon family of six boys and was always making really lame karate movies on the trampoline with my brothers. Later on I actually started interning as a camera assistant with a cinematographer my mom had gone to high school with. So every summer from the time I was fourteen I would work as a camera assistant, like as a camera loader, on whatever he was working on, whether it was a commercial or documentaries or small feature films, so I had a little production experience before I went to college. At film school I thought I wanted to be a DP for a while so I actually shot a lot of student films. I really didn't like what I working on though and thought a lot were just a lame waste of film, so I decided that I needed to write my own comedies, and that's when I shot "Peluca" which is the short film that inspired Napoleon. It's on the DVD and you can see how poorly that's exposed, it's grainier than all get out. That was the foray into filmmaking.

For Nacho I'd been a big fan of the lucha libre masked hero wrestling films and after Napoleon we learned about a Mexican friar who was moonlighting as a wrestler to raise money for an orphanage. It was an article or property that Paramount had bought and we got to go write it with our friend Mike White, and luckily I was already a big fan of that world.

On set photos 2 (Click to Enlarge)

So much of Broncos is autobiographical. I mean the mother character is very similar to my mother, who made popcorn balls and would make me and my brothers go sell them and she also worked for a Modest nightgown company. My wife has a cousin who lives up in Alaska, he's 15, and for a long time he'd been writing really messed up science fiction stories that bring his mother to tears all the time. We read a couple of them and they were... I mean I could really relate to this kid in a weird way, and we just thought it would be a good jumping off point. The story of a misunderstood artist, trying to do stuff that he was passionate about.

ATS: How much of the way you work is self taught versus film school?

JH I've always wondered how real directors do it. Definitely self taught. My wife and I have co-written all of our films and I feel like in the writing process, that when a movie's been written it's already been directed once by somebody, and when we're writing characters and voices and things it's always been an important part of the process for us to know exactly what these people look like, what they wear and how they sound. I do a lot of line readings when I'm directing, doing all the voices of all the characters in our films, and I'm fortunate enough to work with people that don't completely hate me for that.

Final faux book covers with source details, 1-12 (Click to Enlarge)

Final faux book covers with source details, 13-24(Click to Enlarge)

ATS: Who or what inspires you?

JH: Immediate family. I really do take my cues from life and I guess I'm really mining people that I know, and therefore most of the characters that populate our films are loosely based on people that we know or people we grew up with. I've always wanted to see movies populated with these types of people, and so many people that I know have such fascinating or interesting stories, whatever quiet life they lead. I want this type of personality to be exposed to other people. Most filmmakers try to make the kind of movie they have wanted to see but haven't seen yet, so they're going out and making it. It can also be very selfish too, and you can end up alienating a ton of people as well.

ATS: Do you see yourself going more mainstream then?

JH: Yeah, I mean, there are plenty of stories that I want to do that I know I'd have to do in a studio way, to be able to do it bigger, and that stuff excites me. Napoleon and Bronco were smaller stories about smaller characters and needed to be done that way. I think it would be just as fun making something bigger, though Nacho was big for us. For me though, I want to make a western. I can't wait to make my western.

Jack White steadily builds with an upholsterers touch in prelude to the opening title sequence in Davis Guggenheim's "It Might Get Loud." It is a turning out of battered axes and the men who wield them, their names embossed or tracking in the grain with the promise of one last caress like some tough poetry.

From the DVD Commentary with Director Davis Guggenheim, Producer Lesley Chilcott and Producer Thomas Tull:

DG: "The film's editor, Greg Finton, and I fought for months in the editing room as he insist that this scene [the opening with Jack White building an instrument in what feels like real time] be at the beginning of the movie and I told him he was dead wrong. Now it is my favorite scene in the movie and it is perfect and it shows what a huge contribution Greg had in the editing and narrative construction of this movie."

LC: "Jack...came to us with the idea that it is not about how much fancy equipment you can afford to buy. [That] anyone, even if they didn't haven any money, could learn to play an instrument. So the idea was to build this diddley bow. He found this 2x4 and a Coca-Cola bottle and brought some strings and a pickup and literally built it on camera. The scene was originally much longer; one of the funny things that happened was that there were cows on the farm which we did not place in the background. They eventually wandered over to hear what he was doing."

DG: "[I] remember the diddley bow myth that poor blacks in the south would string a piece of barbed wire on a fence because they couldn't afford a guitar. It is how Bo Diddley got his name."

LC: "We were lucky enough to have this great group from New York [Click3x] do our titles and we just supplied them with elements. They were really kind to do this for us. They took a real personal interest. Steve Tozzi and Carson Hood and a whole group of people."

DG: "One of the great ideas [Click3x] had was to have the names on the guitars so Jimmy Page's name is embossed in ivory on the body of his own guitar."

Art of the Title: How did you become involved?

Steve Tozzi: I actually got a call from Lesley Chilcott, the producer working with It Might Get Loud's director Davis Guggenheim. She said that he saw a film I did with Jonathan Demme about President Carter called “Man From Plains,” which had a lot of dimensional type work done throughout. We met and started pitching ideas and early rough concepts and also discussed what we would have access to. Having not seen any of the film yet, I asked what it was about and was told it was a story about the electric guitar, these three very different musicians and how they ultimately meet. My initial reaction was that it would be wonderful to get their guitars and maybe shoot everything practically, [to] actually have them engraved with their names. Davis loved that idea, he was really intrigued by it and wanted to try. Ultimately I wanted to treat their titles more like famous guitar manufacturers like Gibson, Gretsch etc. and keep it in that style but also customize each to the artists’ own personality.

As we we're gearing up and starting to design for the body of the film, we found out that we couldn't do the practical application because basically Jack White's guitar which he is famous for, a Woolworths brand guitar, is essentially made of plastic, therefore making it very hard to do the inlay on. That wasn't going to stop anything; we had the option to create it digitally and track in the typography. Davis shot a series of setups with the guitars with a lot of beautiful motion tracking shots, throwing the guitars in air, all overcranked to base the effect on.

Jimmy Page's handwriting sample (Click to Enlarge)

The Edge's handwriting sample (Click to Enlarge)

ATS: What was Click3X responsible for?

ST: We handled the opening title sequence, the chapter breaks and all the lower third customization.

ATS: How did you develop the type treatments used throughout the opening?

ST: Once we saw the film we knew that each title -each logo design- needed to be different because of how different the musicians were from each other. Jimmy Page came very quickly because it felt like earlier versions of the Gibson logo from the 30's where there was some really unique workmanship done to the mark [with] more curves. I liked some of the more bulbous arcs from that and also I took some inspiration from other hand done logo work from the 50s and even from the 70s. It ultimately came together and felt like a guitar company's logo. The second one was Jack White where I looked at the signage from diners strangely enough, and companies like Gretsch as he also plays Gretsch guitars. Anything too close to a real guitar company mark was wrong, so I had to hybrid a lot of design together. The toughest one was The Edge. As Jimmy Page says he's a sonic architect, but early on U2 was a little more pop rock in sound and now they're much more textural, so it was mainly trying to find the bridge between the two and ended up with something that felt more stenciled by a roadie than crafted and decorative. We went through many many versions of that one.

Jack White first draft of ID (Click to Enlarge)

Jack White first draft comp (Click to Enlarge)

ATS: So all the lettering is custom for the three main musicians?

ST: Yes, for Jimmy's I just drew it by hand and then retraced it. The other two were based on typeface we retooled. [For the subsequent credits] I didn't want to go with something standard and clean that might pull the sequence back into a traditional documentary style so when we got down to doing all the production names on the front end of the film I needed to find something that still had a lot of character but didn't take away from the main musician's titles. We ended up with this Little Ricky looking typeface that felt like it was from the 50s but didn't feel too cliché. We then took these elements and tracked them into a 3D space of the shots. We had some camera data but basically just did it hand tracked. The type moves but it is pinned into a place, anchored in space.

Early "T.Tull Production" tag (Click to Enlarge)

ATS: Were you able to dictate the live action shots?

ST: Davis and I had a conversation before he shot and he basically asked me what I would like. He had shot some things already, some nice dynamic footage and so I just asked for more of that, with a wider range of guitars, regardless if it was for the main talent or production crew. I wanted a collection, and we ended up getting tons of selects, with the "lazy susan" style shots being the ones that worked best.

ATS: Each title in the 9-frame contact sheet is unique, while intercut with film footage.

ST: Davis knew he wanted to start with Jack making the guitar -that was the first image you'd see. Whenever we show the opening sequence, I always start from the beginning to when Jack is playing [the title card]. That idea came late in the production but I asked what if we had the type on each string and worked it into his motion and then just deal with the resonance of the string to have it bring on the title. This had to stand out; the typography was hand done and the production names had their own personality so our film’s title really has to peak.

Jack White uncut film plate (Click to Watch Quicktime) or (iPhone/iPad)

ATS: You've built to something. The movement of the strings is a different than what's come before. And with Jack playing.

ST: There are a couple shots where he's a little more recognizable where you could see his head, but the close framing worked better. Also on those shots, with that particular guitar, there was dust on it so when he played it really kicked up and we were so overcranked that you got this beautiful motion. With regards to execution we then had to track the type into that with no camera data, so all of it was hand tracked and there was a lot of back and forth to make it work. Even though you're not seeing this naturally it had to look believable and that they're married to the right string and they're bending correctly, so it was interesting to see it come together. You were able to look at it and know it worked.

Final stacked logo (Click to Enlarge)

Design frames (Click to Enlarge)

ATS: How was the working relationship with Davis and co.?

ST: Well this was definitely a bit of a departure from the work he's done before, this was a little bit more progressive in how much the graphics would talk. I really wanted to push the titles as far as I could. One thing about the creative process on this project was that even the concepts that I pitched for the body of the film that weren’t used -the more involved chapter heads and pieces like that- they were always really well received, we connected really quickly. I try to put a lot in front of directors early on because it builds dialog, then you can get a sense of how far you can go, and then you can even push those ideas further because of trust. Trust needs to be there.

Clean vs Final plates comparison (Click to Enlarge)

ATS: How big was the production team?

ST: I was the designer and the director for the graphics, but we had maybe 3-4 people working on it at any given time, a small crew. The majority of work Click3x does is commercial and broadcast so I actually find this type of production a little easier as you usually have more time conceptualize and execute…they are not as hectic, especially for a documentary. You can really hand craft design and have a healthy back and forth with the director.

ATS: In terms of technology, what are the applications you are using to put this together?

ST: All the design was done in Illustrator and Photoshop for presentation, comps and final elements. All of the effect work -basically applying it to the film plates we got from Davis - we worked in Autodesk's Flame and Smoke.

leftchannel's opening title sequence for Reto Caduff's "The Visual Language of Herbert Matter," establishes the circulation of a documentary profiling the remarkable creative variance in design, photography and film of the titular AIGA Medalist bringing an almost forgotten genius back into focus. It is a remix of Matter's remarkable creative variance that smartly retains the clarity of each medium giving the uninitiated a budding sense of the artist unbound.

The works include Matter's iconic Swiss travel posters, pavilion designs for the New York World’s Fair 1939, photographs for Condé Nast publications, corporate image programs for Knoll furniture and the New Haven Railroad, designs for the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum, covers for the legendary Arts & Architecture Magazine and imagery from his lesser known work in film, the prime example being a film on the works of Alexander Calder.

leftchannel Art Director and Animator Nate Reese details the creation of the title sequence for us.

Herbert Matter portrait (Click to Enlarge)

Several weeks went by after our initial discussion and suddenly some hard drives arrived via FedEx. Apparently, Reto had been scouring the globe - painstakingly scanning and cataloguing anything concerning Herbert Matter. The drives contained hundreds of gigabytes of images and films. The content ranged from family photos, Vogue magazine covers, personal letters, logo designs, and more. Just absorbing all of the content included became a task spanning several days.

Herbert Matter work examples (Click to Enlarge)

Once we had finally come to grips with everything supplied, we had a chat with Reto to talk about the general mood of the titles. He went on to explain that this project was personal for him. He was in a process of discovery of sorts. There was so much content out there, yet there was no real definitive biography on Matter. Reto was putting together a puzzle of sorts, picking up pieces along his travels. He wanted to feel that mysterious type of journey within the titles.

We also discussed bringing a part of Matter's creative process to the credits. Historically, he's best known for his use of photographic work in design, so we decided on shooting darkroom setups to be included throughout the sequence. Reto headed this up and the footage turned out beautiful. It had a wonderful nostalgic feel to it. We ended up incorporating a good amount of it into the title sequence. All of the darkroom footage was shot in Reto's kitchen using a Canon 5D Mark II. The enlarger / flash bulb were purchased on eBay a few days before the shoot.

Storyboard (Click to Enlarge)

As we started work on the titles, the first discussion we had was about which typeface to use - arguably one of the most important design decisions you need to make in a title sequence project about a prolific designer. We wanted for sure to use a typeface that Matter would have approved of. We settled on Clarendon, as it has a nice historical presence and Matter based some of our favorite works off of it.

Herbert Matter's expertise and career covered a broad range of techniques and subjects. We wanted as many of these unique facets represented in the titles. We spent many additional days going back through all of Reto's archives and cherry picking our favorite images across all the categories to use as collage elements throughout the piece.

Alternative type builds (Click to Watch Quicktime)

Next, we started experimenting around with simple atmospheric studies + type builds. We presented several different styles to Reto, getting his input on which would be the most appropriate for the a documentary about Herbert Matter. Eventually, we settled on a fairly simple build structure, but felt that this was more reflective of his work.

For the main title build, we were adamant about the type simply appearing on screen. We felt this added greatly to the impact of the main build, as well as giving a nice vintage feel as we were concerned with scenes looking too "slick". We wanted the titles to feel as if they could have existed during Herbert Matter's life span. Sort of a "lost in time" feeling.

Parallax technique example (Click to Watch Quicktime)

We also wanted to hint at some parallax, as the technique is used extensively through the film in several sequences produced by another house. The parallax technique is most obvious during the 'Editors' sequence at 00:47.

The majority of the project was built in After Effects with a few additional 3D elements scattered throughout.

As far as the music, we originally cut to a Massive Attack song to set the tone and pacing. Once the titles were nearing completion, Reto gave them to composer Greg Manning, who did an outstanding job creating an original track.

The creative freedom we were allowed on this project was huge. Reto was excellent to work with and this project truly was a collaborative effort. We were very honored to be a part of this film that sheds a much deserved light on the life and art of Herbert Matter.

The hypnotic magnificence of Duncan Jones' "Moon" is the setting of a kind of space-drawn samhain built to support the machines, here harvesters of Helium-3, the latest source of our terrestrial dependency.

Affecting documentary -all of it stock footage- is unveiled as something corporate and cankerous, shortly giving way to the inviting lightness of Clint Mansell's score. The title card features an impressive use of perspective. Placement and persistence of type domineers the narrative as something akin to Kevin Spacey's lilt which plays like HAL 9000 but follows its own heart.

The 2010 Emmy nominations for "Outstanding Main Title Design" have just been announced and feature an excellent selection of work from studios both large and small.

Imaginary Forces has three sequences in the running this year - "Human Target" (creative direction by Karin Fong), "Nurse Jackie" (Steve Fuller & Mark Gardner) and the recently featured "The Pacific" (Steve Fuller & Ahmet Ahmet).

From Shine, and creative director Michael Riley, comes the title sequence (as well as additional animation work) for HBO Film's "Temple Grandin" which also received an "Outstanding Lead Actress" nomination for Claire Danes.

Congratulations everyone.

The inspired plot-and-character impulses of Upasana Nattoji Roy’s title design for Director Indrajit Nattoji’s “Aagey Se Right” are a stamped and stitched lot of subjective fabulism in blinkingly bright rubbery Gothic impressions. We are jolted and whisked into a lickerish dervish where M.I.A., Nina Paley and/or Gogol Bordello could be your partners in menace.

Art of the Title: Tell us a little bit about your background, and your company, Switch!

Upasana Nattoji Roy: Switch is an animation studio that takes on a diverse range of communication projects – from ad films and title design to PSAs, packaging & promos.

I joined the National Institute of Design, India, after high school with an interest in textile, product & communication design. The universal appeal of animation, the variety of styles and ever-widening spectrum of mediums to play with, made it my natural choice of specialization. As a student I took on professional projects with India’s national television and trained with Channel [V] – Asia’s premiere music channel.

After graduation, I started working simultaneously on experimental projects ranging from installations for museums to commercial broadcast films in India. I moved to Dubai as a senior producer and worked in promos and packaging in Ten Sports (a sports television channel) and Dubai One (an English entertainment channel). Throughout my time in Dubai I continued to collaborate on projects based in India. I was constantly taking on projects which were multidisciplinary. The idea of neat little defined boxes of genres bothers me. The fact that one should either be an ad film maker or a feature animator, even having to stick to live action or animation seems restricting to me.

The purpose of any of these mediums is to communicate. The style chosen is just one of the tools available; the medium is not the message. Switch! was born with this perspective. After working in broadcast, specializing in promotions and packaging for over seven years, I decided to take on the challenge of going the distance on my own. I am building Switch! as a platform for collaboration between specialists in various forms of communication design involving the wide spectrum of film, animation and motion graphics.

ATS: How often are unique title sequences used in Indian cinema?

UNR: In Indian mainstream cinema, till recently the hierarchy of importance has been – Stars, music, stars, story, dance, stars, locations, stars. So as is obvious giving credit where credit is due has been a formality and an afterthought. Normally the main credits were placed on the opening shots itself.

Main credits on opening shots (Click to Enlarge)

(ʻRaazʼ means mystery – Titles for a horror, thriller, slasher film.)

The most that it would involve is the default wipe or preset animation available on whatever machine they were doing their postproduction. Design in general is a very nascent discipline in India. It comes as a surprise as we are surrounded by organic design all around us on our streets, be it urban or rural.

It would be unfair to say that Indian cinema has not seen unique title sequences. Filmmakers have experimented over the decades though the language was often borrowed in some cases such as the example below. The inspiration is clear though the adaptation is very Indianised, in this case the figure is clearly that of a curvy Indian woman.

Maurice Binder “James Bond” inspired credits (Click to Enlarge)

Earlier, in India, there was a need to have the main titles in three languages. English, Hindi and Urdu. Now that rule has been relaxed and is left to the creative decision of the director and producer.

3 language credits (Click to Enlarge)

There has also been some experimentation with type, for example this regional film by Satyajit Ray used “alpona” inspired typeface. “Alpona” is a decorative art form from Bengal India. The medium used is a paste of rice painted using a hand brush. The style is often floral.

“Abhigyaan” from Satyajit Rays film (Click to Enlarge)

In current times, there is a growing interest in title design and the awareness that a film needs to be introduced or even packaged.

ATS: How did you become involved with the project? How did the idea of an animated title sequence come about?

UNR: I got involved almost at the inception of the film – the screenplay of Aagey Se Right. I worked on the film as the screenplay editor, balancing my then full time job in promos and packaging in a television channel. This involved knowing the film from its soul and the whole process of its birth till it blossomed into a multilayered ruthlessly funny film. After that I moved onto shooting the film as the director’s assistant, making sure nothing is lost in translation between the feature director – Indrajit Nattoji’s twisted brain and the various departments. Throughout this time Indrajit and I often discussed directions and ideas for the title sequence, it was clear before we shot the film that I would be responsible for the title design, though the degree of animation or style within it was left organic.

After doodling and bouncing the various directions with Indrajit – I realized that nothing would do justice to it as a title sequence except a short film, on the film. That’s when we narrowed down on animation as the best medium to work with for this film.

ATS: Take us through the design process, how did you develop the concept for the piece?

UNR: The director had given me a free hand, knowing I had a clear grasp on the film and what he set out to do with it. His brief to me was “make every frame a painting” and it should be something we have never seen before (pressure, pressure, pressure). Of course the added constraint from the producer was zero budget and less than a month from concept to final renders.

The title track was decided quite early on. In Bollywood, the music and songs often need to be ready before the film goes into production so that the song and dance can be planned along with the shoots for the film. The music for the film is actually released before the film to garner interest with viewers. This is a part of the standard marketing strategy used for mainstream features.

“Hippie tu Jhoom” composed by Amartya Raut was chosen because the lyrics of the song hold together various events in the film. The song went through various drafts and each version was completely different (I loved them all). The final version is a great driving track with a lot of street cool to it. The spontaneity and humour of the song rings true the spirit of the film.

The titles started out as concept discussions while working on the screenplay. We wanted to use it to tie in the opening shots to the rest of the film. So as the screenplay changed so did the plot and style for the titles. Finally we decided that the titles would be a concept bridge as well as a visual transition of the journey of the hero. “Aagey Se Right” has three heroes, in random sequence of importance – Gun, Cop and Terrorist. The mayhem that ensues within the film due to these three heroes holds the essence of the film. In order to create that in the titles and to keep a degree of mystery, it needed to remain abstract.

As we got into preproduction of the film, I kept brainstorming on the various ways of achieving the journey. A lot of the ideas incorporating scale had to be swept aside due to the sheer lack of time and funding. The preproduction involved a lot of recci (scouting) for location. This kept me traveling through Mumbai. I would also take off on my own to ‘collect’ inspiration. Thats when I stumbled upon a graphic on an obscure wall in Mumbai which was the key to the style that finally evolved. On an urban, street-level, there is organic design all around. It is a shame why most of the derived inspiration is confined to print or packaging in music channels.

Wall “drawing” (Click to Enlarge)

Both Indrajit and I (and many others who have worked in packaging and promos for music channels) have a fetish for street graphics and signage. For the titles I looked around our colourful city for direction (or the lack of it). It was a conscious effort to make sure the titles didn’t just look like still frames of stuff from the street simply strung together. The Indian Urban street kitsch has been exploited well and done to death by Channel [V] and MTV. It needed to be “inspired by” street graphics but taken to the next level – made into a new visual style that I hadn’t seen before.

Inspiration sheet (Click to Enlarge)

Once we agreed on animation as the medium and a short film format for titles, I was completely on my own.

The Cop and the Terrorist being of “human” form, I took the pedestrian sign to symbolize and ‘act’ out not only their parts but all human roles. The Gun meanwhile took on the mantle of being the hero and the ‘trigger’ for all actions. The gun – shot, chased, dived, flew, ran across the titles while the pedestrian responded as per the various characters of the film.

With the story line reworked for the titles in place, I proceeded to make a rough storyboard/timeline to help time the duration for titles on screen. Once the almost-final list of titles were given they were added to the rough animatic to pace it out.

Storyboard flying actions for the character (Click to Enlarge)

Sketch for the main heroes plate (Click to Enlarge)

Sketch for the chaotic Raghavʼs den and escape (Click to Enlarge)

Sketch for the Media creatures (Click to Enlarge)

Early storyboard animatic (Click to Watch QuickTime)

The animatic and storyboard were intentionally not polished to keep the process organic while creating the elements within each frame. For example – the humour from the film could spill aptly and happily into the titles. On the onset of the man’s journey it was clear that he couldn’t be sitting on the second bike constantly (the cop rides a Royal Enfield Bullet motorcycle in the film). That is when Indrajit jumped in again with – “make him ride the ‘bullet’ ” – Enfield Bullet motorcycle vs the gun’s bullet. Ha! It was creatively satisfying that this kind of improvisation with the animation was possible.

Bullet ride (Click to Enlarge)

The Aagey se Right titles are a jigsaw puzzle in motion. For those who haven’t seen the film it works as a precursor to introduce the main three heros and the multiple, bizarrely varied sub plots within the film. For those who choose to watch the film again, they will enjoy the ‘guess who and where’ game.

While taking the viewer through the main events it even touches up upon the teeny, mini-plots (creative freedom) as well – hello cop, hello terrorist, cop loses gun, terrorist loses heart, jump underground factory, big exploding toilet, media chase, man or superman, cow-napping aliens, DJ bomb, mumbai city (please note the hoardings in the distance, even if you need to pause the frame), night chase, Gateway of India (in the film we had a model of it in the climax) and many other endearing characters.

Final elements collage (Click to Enlarge)

ATS: How was the sequence put together, and what was the most difficult aspect of this piece?

UNR: The title design was animated using custom vector elements in Adobe After Effects. I used a 2.4GHz G5 – which was powered with 8GB RAM (much to my dismay – only 3GB could be allocated to After Effects.) I consciously used the rudimentary aspects of the software, which worked well with the style as it offered the ‘rough’ around the edges – craftsy feel that we wanted. Plugins were consciously avoided without covering up with dust and flares and other such distractions.

Upasana at the Switch! office (Click to Enlarge)

Limited resources proved to be the most difficult aspect of the project as well as a blessing. Difficult with regard to computers – at that time I had just one machine which did it all. That machine was too old to be upgraded to take on 2k renders. Blessing because with this constraint I worked out a streamlined system of file management which will make future, more complicated projects easier to handle. Difficult with regard to manpower – one person did it all – Since I had a zero budget I couldn’t even hire an assistant for the cleanups. Blessing because I could work on it the ‘artistic’ way with the freedom for spontaneity.

After Effects project for bullet sequence (Click to Enlarge)

After Effects is often considered a ‘low end’ software by hardcore post guys, but the versatility of the software is unparalleled. It handles different animation and motion graphics styles with ease even in its most raw form. When used with hand drawn/Illustrator/Photoshop elements – it frees the visualizer from creative constraints. Combined with added on plug-ins – it is quite a force to reckon with. As Ninja Assassin would say – “Fear not the weapon but the hand that wields it.” I believe softwares are just another tool to add to your palette. What you do with it entirely depends on your imagination.

ATS: Who inspires you and what excites you outside of design?

UNR: The answer to this could be either very short – ‘everything and everyone’ or a very long description. My choice of profession was primarily based on the multiplicity it offers – from thought to styles, materials to inspirations. One source of inspiration is travel and the people I meet during my travels. It offers me the openness to accept and inculcate multiple points of views.

Another source are the Indian classical arts. I am a professional Indian Classical Dancer. After training and performing Bharatanatyam from the age of five – have added on Kathak in my repertoire. Dance is incomplete without music. So an initiation into Hindustani classical was also natural. This gives me the sense of timing within my work. I often delve into my experiences, emotions and storytelling styles of the performing arts as a bank for my inspirations. A constant desire to connect and link the core principles and ideologies between the various art forms (dance, music or visual arts) and life, is something that deeply influences me as a person and my work.

ATS: What are some examples of title design that were influential to you as artists?

UNR: Designers – Saul Bass, Kyle Cooper and Michel Gondry. A lot of title design influences are also from music videos: Take On Me – Aha, Peter Gabriel’s videos, Chemical Brothers’ videos, Daft Punk’s videos, Mad About You – Hooverphonic, All is full of love – Bjork, Strawberry Swing – Coldplay, Her Morning Elegance – Oren Lavie.

Title Design: Catch Me If You Can, Lemony Snicket’s end credits, Juno, Zombieland, – the way the film is packaged.

ATS: What are you working on now?

UNR: Currently SWITCH! is taking on projects in Packaging (for television channels) and Ad films. Looking forward to taking on more title design projects both feature and for series. The focus of Switch! is to reinvent visual and storytelling styles in animation and film. We are doing this by building it as a collaboration of specialists who come together on various projects. Apart from the commercial projects I am also trying to squeeze out time to work on my short film.

I have started a project called Avataar – a series on the Dashavataram based on the reincarnations of Vishnu – the god of preservation in indian mythology. The Dashavataram mythology is based on the evolution of human civilization.

Having an opportunity to harvest the marrow a bit more on the crafting of the opening to HBO’s “The Pacific,” Art of the Title was able to speak with both Steve Fuller formerly of Imaginary Force’s New York office and Ahmet Ahmet of Imaginary Force’s Los Angeles office to round out the creative history of the piece.

Baptismal and greasy war-streaked faces of mothers’ sons were rendered by Steve Fuller -then in his eighth year at Imaginary Forces, this his final project- and continued by Ahmet Ahmet, using charcoal on tracing paper then scanned and overlaid back into the provided original footage. Hans Zimmer’s score plays with a dignity that is on par with To Kill A Mockingbird (and it’s own legendary opening).

The visuals, profound; the sky-soiling blood sun, a singular helmet strap that seems to drain from the man, from his horrors, the variations of charcoal dust analogical to the volcanic sand of the Pacific islands -all blending and fueling the notion that life runs from our sons and the sons of our enemies then as now.

Part One: New York

Art Director, Designer and Illustrator Steve Fuller details the project’s beginnings at Imaginary Forces, New York.

This contact sheet shows a handful of the inspiration for the boards. We did a lot of research before we started. Everything from drawing made by US soldiers to Japanese postcards…Egon Schiele, Cai Guo-Qiangs gunpowder paintings, war posters etc. War maps and military documents influenced typography. You can also see where the color scheme comes from. I wanted to hint at the Japanese element so we looked at ink drawings and wood block prints.

Inspiration sheet (Click to Enlarge)

The next step was experimenting with the charcoal and graphite. This contact sheet shows a few of our crushed charcoal “paintings”. I think we took around 300 photos in all. We tried everything: stomping on it, scraping in across paper with a metal cylinder, blowing it across the surface. We were looking at paintings by Franz Kline and Robert Motherwell, trying to capture that abstract expressionism feel. We tried to make the charcoal feel explosive and capture the violence of war. We also tried to connect the charcoal dust to the black sand found on the islands in the south Pacific.

Charcoal and graphite experiments (Click to Enlarge)

At the same time we were experimenting with the abstract charcoal paintings we started drawing some of the characters in the mini-series to hone in on the right style. It was harder than we thought it would be. You really have to know how to draw to make it believable. Here a few of the raw drawings. It’s a combination of pencil, charcoal, and grease pencils. At one point we considered making these drawings into 3D sculpture that the camera would fly around, but felt it would have been way too flashy for this subject matter.

At this point they were shooting the episodes so we only have a few shots to work with. The drawing on the right was actually made from a grab of Saving Private Ryan.

Raw drawings (Click to Enlarge)

From all of our material we put together three different directions. I worked with two great designers (Lauren Hartstone and Arisu Kashiwagi) to turn these ideas into full storyboards.

‘In Battle’ board (Click to Enlarge)

‘Line of Duty’ board (Click to Enlarge)

‘Torn’ board (Click to Enlarge)

In Battle is the one they liked best. The Line of Duty was a variation the used black and white chalk. Torn was the most unique to me. All about torn paper. I knew it was probably pushing it too much but it was so beautiful we just had to execute this idea. It was actually inspired by the poster for Bunny Lake is Missing.

The film makers didn’t ask for posters but halfway through working on boards I decided to take a break and try to create a single iconic image (the kind that works on a poster) that would create a memorable ending to the sequence. Here are some of those posters. It was a good exercise and led us to the idea of one soldier carrying another on his shoulders. A memorable image. The ending of our sequence for Mad Men worked so nicely as an iconic image…I wanted a powerful ending here too. Another thing to come from the poster experimentation was the sequence being bookended with this single horizon line/path. It then branches into three paths at the beginning, one for each of the main characters. At the end of the sequence we come back to the line/path where we find two soldiers. The ones who made it out the other side.

Posters (Click to Enlarge)

Here are some of the processed drawings. Some of these were in the sequence, removed, placed back in etc. There were roughly 33 drawings in all. This is after they went through a bit of a treatment in photoshop.

Processed drawings (Click to Enlarge)

Art of the Title: When did the use of live action footage come in to play? Was it always in the original concepts to blend from one medium to another?

Steve Fuller: We planned to do that from the start. We thought it would be a missed opportunity if we never saw a drawing come to life. At one point we thought about having the drawings live in three-dimensional space and have the camera fly through them, but quickly decided against it. It would have been too “effectsy” for this show. We tried to keep it sophisticated.

The charcoal drawing footage was shot over about five different sessions with the Panasonic HVX and a high speed Casio camera. We shot in our studio and outside in the park.

ATS: How did you work with the music? Was the Hans Zimmer score provided beforehand?

SF: We got the score after we did the boards and our first board-o-matic. Once we got the music and started shooting some test footage of the charcoal, we started merging the two immediately. Getting audio and visual more tightly synced the further along we went. The film makers wanted us to hit certain crescendos in the music, and it made it better.

ATS: Did the time it took to complete this work -the process of unearthing the process- result in the best sequence?

SF: I think it gradually got better, but the key components were always there: The portraits, macro photography of charcoal hitting paper, and footage from the series. The bulk of the time was actually spent editing. What was the best moment to draw?, going through all the dailies etc. I did so many drawings (there are more that didn’t make it in than did) I got better over the year. I had to make sure they didn’t get too fussy or detailed. They needed to look a bit unfinished. Doing the drawings by hand made it a better sequence, and they took some time to get right. My hands were black more than a few days.

ATS: How do you approach something as meaningful as the documentation of war? It is a lot to bear at the outset. What do you think of the miniseries?

SF: We were very excited when we were asked to pitch on this project. Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, Gary Goetzman, Tony To? Those guys don’t mess around. Their standards are so high, we knew they were going to treat the subject with the utmost respect and accuracy. My approach was the same as any project. As soon as I hear about a job, ideas start swirling around in my head. And this subject matter is so dense visually. If anything we had to edit some of the elements we wanted to get into the boards. We got to see roughcuts, I thought it was all great. They had 3 rough trailers that were all emotionally moving. We were very excited to get started.

ATS: Did the opening for To Kill A Mockingbird have any influence?

SF: Ha, thanks for blowing my cover! [Executive Creative Director] Peter Frankfurt’s father Steve would sometimes drop by the New York office. There are definitely tribute shots in The Pacific. The charcoal rolling shot in particular is based on the marble rolling shot in To Kill a Mockingbird. Difficult to do actually. I felt like it was “legal” because I worked for his son. We actually showed Steve a roughcut one day and he really loved it. So I took that as his blessing. The main title sequence to To Kill a Mockingbird will always be influential to me, it’s effortlessly beautiful.

ATS: How do you work with other members of the production team, in terms of participation?

SF: It’s always a collaboration. I try to steer things but let it drift if it’s going in a positive direction. I had some really talented people around me. Lauren Hartstone and Arisu Kashiwagi worked on boards. Lauren worked alongside me the whole way. Corey Weisz, our editor, was constantly adjusting the edit, helping me shoot. Cara McKenny, our producer, spent countless hours in the edit room with us talking about nerdy design stuff. Lots of freelancers also helped out along the way.

ATS: What element(s) of this sequence are you most happy with?

SF: I like how nicely the three main ingredients blend together. I also really like how the drawings came out in the end. I felt like it was my own artwork. You don’t get that on every project.

ATS: What is life like after Imaginary Forces? What is on the horizon for you?

SF: Life is good. I’m freelancing right now and talking to some production companies about directing more live-action.

Part Two: Los Angeles

Art Director and Illustrator Ahmet Ahmet details the continuation of the project at Imaginary Forces, Los Angeles.

ATS: Can you tell us a little bit about your background?

Ahmet Ahmet: In London I had worked as a designer/director at the BBC for fourteen years. I moved to the States in 2000 to do more feature work. Kyle (Cooper) was here at the time and I came to work with him and primarily design main title sequences.

While in London I worked at CFC Framestore where I headed up their first design department working with filmmakers on their F/X. One of the three sequences was with Peter Yates, one of my heroes. I wanted to continue to work with filmmakers and so came to Imaginary Forces.

Previous to that I did a lot of broadcast, design and directing work for BBC1 and BBC2. I was working with the promotions department; the burgeoning thing then was self promotion which started with Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day.” This was a new direction for BBC promotion. I was able to work with a lot of talented commercial directors there. My journey was about working with filmmakers. One of the first projects I worked on in the States was Jet Li’s “The One,” which was an interesting opportunity to do something totally abstract.

ATS: How long have you been at Imaginary Forces?

AA: Almost ten years. I started in June of 2000.

ATS: When the project came to LA, what stage was it at? Was there a rough or final edit?

AA: There was a rough edit that had some complications and no one was really on board with it. At one point there was a danger of it turning into a sequence of turning heads and we talked to Playtone and Gary Goetzman, the producer, and he was very concerned that we make a decent representation of all the characters that would be eventually be unfolded through the sequence. That created a slightly different approach to the edit that existed prior to that which also meant creating new scenes and creating new drawings so that we had a fairer representation of the characters, and so it had a new emphasis then and the emphasis was to make it a little bit more engaging and less of a gallery, more emotionally resonant. So we went about trying to recreate that kind of energy and emotion to the piece to try to make it stronger and that involved reshooting a lot of elements, reediting the piece completely and working with with Gary Goetzman and Tom Hanks to address their concerns.

New character sketches (Click to Enlarge)

ATS: With the project now in LA, what was the size of your team?

AA: We varied between 7-9 people and the first thing we did was work with Danielle White who is our editor to get a cut that was locked. After various meetings and getting everyone’s opinions to try to find the way they wanted the piece to develop, and also fill our creative aspirations, we just kept recutting it. That process was at least two months trying to lock the edit.

ATS: And you’re meeting both internally at Imaginary Forces and with Playtone?

AA: Yeah. Over the whole course of the four months at the LA office we were constantly meeting with Playtone and obviously our own internal creative meetings. We would sometimes post our latest cuts online or we would meet in person as often as we could, depending on peoples schedules.

ATS: What was the deadline?

AA: I’m not sure what the initial deadline was, though I believe it was fairly tight. Given the circumstances however I think it had been extended.

ATS: What was one of your best creative moments? Can you give us an example of something particularly rewarding for you on this project?

AA: One of the sticking points in the sequence was how do we reveal the live-action, going from the drawings, and how do we create a subtle type of animation. The intention was that these were sketches by war artists in the field so there was a roughness to them which also hopefully helped the idea that these were ordinary guys stuck in the horrible situation. So for me it was just really nice to get back to drawing, it’s one of the things that we don’t get to do very often. It was a lot of drawing to try and create something that had that sense of immediacy to it but at the same time we also had to consider how we did it. I took the aesthetic that Steve had started and tried to create something a little more immediate and a little more sketched and less finished.

ATS: So Steve completed a set of drawings and you began work on another set. Were you focused more on the transitions from the drawings to the live action or did both you and Steve do that throughout the sequence?

AA: During that time while Steve was looking after [the project] they had tried different things for the transitions and the edit wasn’t locked, so Steve did a lot of drawings to try and create new characters and new elements for the sequence. A lot of that didn’t make it to the final cut. There was a lot of work that was done to try and gel the sequence together with the drawings and live action and transitions. I experimented a lot trying to figure out a way of creating a more fluid and less linearly drawn feel to it, which then ended up being a series of layered dissolves. This I think helps keep the integrity in the sequence and it didn’t feel like it was tricked out too much. I just wanted to try and create something that had as natural a feel to it as possible without making it feel too electronic. [At this point] we also began prepping for a high speed charcoal shoot.

Bill “Hoosier” Smith character transitions (Click to Enlarge)

ATS: Those elements were already shot. Was the reshoot a result of changes to the edit?

AA: While the material shot by Steve and the team in New York was beautiful and provided inspiration for the look of the elements, much of it was shot at low resolution and would not work for the final HD delivery, but there were some really inspiring elements where the charcoal broke brilliantly. We set up a Phantom shoot on a stage with DP Stacy Toyama to capture the high res elements of the charcoal breaking, exploding, rolling, crumbling as well as new shots of the sketching, all of which were used as either shots or transitional elements in the edit. Before going into the studio with the Phantom I did a lot of experimentation trying to recreate that with different paper types and different thicknesses and weights of charcoal just so we wouldn’t waste time of the day of shooting. Inevitably, the morning was spent trying to recreate stuff that would just happen when you’re not on the shoot.

ATS: What kind of frame rates were you shooting at?

AA: I think between 300-400fps and we did some slight slowing down in post.

ATS: And did you enjoy working with that camera?

AA: I did except that we were so macro with that camera and we had so many lights, at some point in the evening it just broke down. I think maybe we were asking a lot of it in that macro situation. I’d worked with it before, it’s a good camera, and it seems like if you’re going to shoot high speed digitally at those rates (and higher) then there isn’t really that much choice.

ATS: Let’s talk about client challenges. What were some of the typical things that you experienced as a Creative Director/Art Director that you’d go back and forth on?

AA: Gary and Tom were really good to work with. We discussed ideas and the way to put the sequence together and how to broaden it to make it feel bigger but not just an action piece; that these were hero characters. Tom all along wanted to do something with the sense that these were ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances, and without reverting back to cliches or going back to formulaic approaches, which was inspiring. Obviously however when people are that invested there’s a lot different opinions and a lot of talking through and a lot of waiting for people to absorb the material.

There also was a desire on the part of the producers to expand the scope of the sequence. That is when we started to incorporate some of the expansive battle shots, with the destroyers at sea and the airplanes flying overhead. We also worked to create more of a seamless overall aesthetic by bringing in the paper texture and charcoal particle elements to bridge the scenes.

New transition treatments (Click to Enlarge)

ATS: Now are you watching cuts of any of the shows or just raw footage from the series?

AA: I had a full set of the shows, they weren’t all completed and had various effects missing, but they were very easy to watch.

ATS: Did that inform what you were then doing for the title sequence?

AA: Yes, because it really helped me get an emotional level to it and to understand the tone of the characters and the stories that were unfolding and that it wasn’t just about the horror. It really helped create a tone through the edit. Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman wanted a certain feel and obviously they’d done this before with “Band of Brothers” and it was interesting to hear their opinions and try to formulate how we felt about it here in Imaginary Forces and how I felt about trying to cut the piece together, along with Danielle and the other animators that were working alongside us.

It was important to Tom Hanks that these guys weren’t portrayed as guns-blazing heroes in the style of John Wayne, but rather he wanted the sequence to convey that these were regular guys who were beaten down day in and day out and yet they would pick themselves up and keep moving forward.

ATS: Connecting to that, how do you work with the production team on a daily basis?

AA: I spend part of my time reviewing the edits, offering ideas within the cutting room. I do my own hands-on Photoshop work and try to delineate some kind of basic animation and experiment with the ways the transitions could work. We don’t necessarily have team meetings all the time as that can be counterproductive -we all have an idea what the end goal should be but individually we are all working on specific problems, trying to find solutions either for the transitions or how the cut would work in a certain way juxtaposing the explosive elements of live action, or even selecting the live action scenes, all to try to keep the flow of the sequence. On a day-to-day basis I work with the animators and the editor. I also make look-frames, and drawings and cut them into the edit to post to the client to get as quick a response as possible to keep the process fluid, which is never easy as people’s schedules can be all over the place.

ATS: Was this the only project that you were working on at the time?

AA: There are always other projects but the emphasis on this one was to free as much of my time as possible to try and solve the problems. But there are always ongoing projects, things I was working on prior to this one that also require commitment.

ATS: How was it when things started to come together, from rough/final cut to being onlined and completed?

AA: It is interesting because there are always all these things you want to change and you never really want to lock it in and there are always last minute comments. But once we locked we tried to get portions of the drawings and the edit and the treatment in our Inferno [Note: Inferno is a high-end system for visual effects creation used primarily for high-speed compositing and effects on feature films and television commercials.]. I worked with Rod Basham here to recomposite some of the After Effects elements from the animators and also to explore different texturing.

Once we found a section that was locked, or a drawing that was approved, we would work with it in HD to make sure everything was looking right and lining up.

ATS: It was an incremental process.

AA: Yes, it was piece by piece to begin with. Once the edit was locked we threw everything back into the Inferno to finish it in-house. We had to rebuild a lot of After Effects comps that were initially sent from New York at a higher resolution, we had to recreate some of the texturing. Once the client was happy with the drawings those would also then go into the Inferno to ensure the high res scans were lining up. Some scans were 2K and some were 4K, so we could blow into them. We added some selected dissolves between sequences and some dust particles just over the foreground layers for a little bit more depth in places.

At the same time we were completing this work, we were also creating the map animations which are used throughout the episodes. For the final episode we also created an epilogue (designed in a complementary style) featuring some of the real people portrayed in the series.

ATS: Are you happy with the final sequence?

AA: I am. I am happy we were involved with it.

ATS: It is fascinating for us to be able to explore two very interesting stories about this one sequence, something that begins in one place and ends in another with the vision carried through.

AA: It is, and we tried to keep the integrity of that as much as possible. It was hard to get to the point where everyone agreed because everyone was so invested in trying to elevate it that once we got there it felt pretty good.

ATS: What has inspired you in the last five years?

AA: I think ideas and interpretations of ideas, which sounds abstract, but I get a lot of inspiration from watching movies and feeling that there’s a way and a style of storytelling which is interpreted through the visual format. It’s a discipline that’s a part of what we do but obviously there’s the design way of thinking to our work as well. So much is about the right tone and mood with what you’re trying to do, and it’s constantly growing in how we can influence the look of the film.

In the early years of me starting here there was a lot initial design work done on Minority Report in terms of trying to visualize what the pre-cogs saw and how you could integrate a designed look into the film which at the same time was very grounded in the storytelling. Those are aspects of design and thinking that I try to stick to.

ATS: It’s interesting that more and more design companies are working on films like Minority Report and Iron Man in a visual effects capacity. It seems like the the more traditional design side and the fx side are now blurring together.

AA: That’s true, those lines between the disciplines are blurring as technology makes us react in different ways. The more sophisticated we can work, the more realistic things we can render, the more tools we have to try and integrate our thinking and designs, within a commercial or a film title or within the content of a film. It’s always refreshing to think of things beyond what you see and or things that you can imagine achieving with the technology – I guess that’s what we try to do as designers or directors – figure out the most interesting approach to the project.

Band of Brothers – opening title sequence