Storyboarding my Title Sequence

One of the most important pieces of pre-production work in the creation of an animation is the Storyboard. For my title sequence I am going for a very specific aesthetic, inspired by the art style of the comic I am adapting, but not emulating it. I want the art style to stand on its own and be more graphic and vector based than in the comic, which is more of a balanced combination of digital and traditional techniques. One of the things I will be taking form the comic is the colour scheme. The cool blues lend an air of mystique and dread to the images and the black and white contrast really enhance this. I wanted red to be there to emphasise an object in the scene such as the moon or the apple, as they are key thematic tokens in the story. 

My title sequence will be presented as one continuous shot with a reoccurring motif of descent, which adds to this sense of dread which I am going for. As Kyle Cooper said, the title sequence should set up an audience's expectations for a story by painting a rough idea of the overall tone the story will take. The Nesting Place, which I am adapting, while suitable for a younger audience, has an overall dark tone, so I want to communicate that in as many ways as possible. The jagged rocks in the cave I feel are a nice contrast to the pointy silhouettes of the evergreen trees and the icicles which hang above the cave, reinforcing a sense of hostility in the environment.

After finalising my storyboard I decided to set it to the soundtrack I had decided upon to create my animatic in order to properly determine the pace of the title sequence and choices regarding editing. Seeing my storyboard in sequence allows for me to see what works and what doesn't, ensuring there is a cohesive flow to the sequence.

Kyle Cooper: Title Sequences

While researching Title sequences in The Art of the Title for inspiration, I stumbled across a few notable designers, most notably Kyle Cooper who has a track record dating back to the late eighties for creating some of the most iconic title sequences for some of the biggest hollywood films of the past 20 years. Cooper's philosophy is that a film's title sequence can be 'an integral part' to the setup for a the context of a movie, setting up the title of the film as well as communicating the names of the people who worked on it, though sometimes they can be treated like a throwaway or an afterthought. A title sequence, Cooper believes, sets up an expectation for the film the audience is going to see, designed to pull the audience in and get them excited for what is to come.

Over his career spanning nearly 30 years Cooper has collaborated on vast array of different projects, from big hollywood blockbusters such as 'X-Men First Class' and 'Iron Man' to video games such as 'Metal Gear Solid'. In an interview for the 2004 documentary 'The Look of Saul Bass' Cooper explains how Saul Bass inspired and informed his work on title sequences. According to Cooper, Bass took what was typically a formulaic illustrative style of title cards in a more modernist, typographic direction.

Kyle Cooper on Saul Bass

These influences really come across in Cooper's design for the 2005 film 'Kiss Kiss Bang Bang' with it's retro modernist aesthetic that owes a lot to the stylistic trappings and aesthetic of much of Bass's work, from the noir tinged colour palette to the modernist architecture and costume design, however with a more modern approach utilizing 3D space and computer animation.

Cooper is probably most well known for his title sequence to the 1995 David Fincher classic 'Se7en' starring Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman. The title sequence takes us through the demented scribblings of the film's antagonist, setting the dark tone for the film to come with a montage of disorientating close ups, a sort of video scrapbook set to an unsettling industrial score.

Choosing a book to adapt for a Title Sequence

In order to start work on my title sequence, first I had to choose a book to adapt. I decided early on that I wanted to adapt a graphic novel, as this would give me some sort of visual reference as a starting off point and allow me to prioritise interpreting different visual styles. Plus, to my detriment, I'm not a massive reader.

Whilst browsing book shops for graphic novels with interesting visual styles I stumbled across The Wrenchies by Farel Dalrymple, a comic about a comic which provides escapism for an outcast young boy. What drew me towards this book was the visual style, the washed out watercolour aesthetic and apocalyptic iconography reminded me of 'Mad Max' and 'Lord of the flies.' Something about the breakdown of order and anarchic character designs really drew me in. The idea of a band of estranged kids reminded me of 80s films such as 'The Goonies' and 'Lost Boys', and as a fan of that sort of 80s cinematic aesthetic, the book seemed like a real get. However upon finishing the book, I decided while aesthetically very interesting, thematically there was not all that much going on. In the creation of my title sequence I really wanted to explore things on a more thematic level as well as on a more aesthetic one and the this book didn't exactly have it in spades, at least upon my first read. Also, the visual style, while something I do wish to emulate in the future, was a little complicated to adapt into a title sequence in the limited i have to complete the tasks, as I am not all that well acquainted with watercolour paint.

After deciding against adapting The Wrenchies, I looked in the college library for another book, which is where I came across Joe Sacco's Palestine. I had read Sacco's satirical comic 'Bumf' before and the idea of adapting a very politically charged journalistic graphic novel appealed to me greatly. I was all ready to go, however after a word with the lecturer's and upon reflection, the situation in Palestine, which the comic depicts requires nuanced and deep understanding of the wider political and social context, which I do not feel I have the ability to explore in all that much detail in a thirty second title sequence. As well as that, while in the context of the novel it makes sense, Sacco's caricatures of certain sides of the conflict in Palestine can be a little...unflattering. Not wanting to deeply offend any particular groups, I looked elsewhere for material to adapt.

Which is where I came across Emily Carroll's 'Through The Woods', an anthology of illustrated short stories, loosely based stylistically off Grimm's fairy tales. The art style immediately appealed to me, a mix of graphic vector backgrounds with a handmade feel and more traditionally drawn but digitally coloured characters. One of the stories that attracted me in particular was 'The Nesting Place', the story of a young girl visiting her in-laws while on a break from boarding school. The short story explores themes of anxiety and estrangement from the family through almost Lovecraftian inspired horror, though the book itself is fairly tame, aimed at a young teenage demographic, it does not shy away from depicting these horrors in a meaningful context. The story also offers up lots of striking imagery and visual motifs, such as apples and descent, which I feel would really lend themselves well to a title sequence, which is why I have chosen to adapt 'The Nesting Place' in particular for this task.

Introduction to Applied Animation

Up until this point on the course, we have been learning the fundamental animation skills required to produce high quality animation in a narrative context. With Applied Animation, we are now expected to take the skills we've garnered and apply them in a more commercial context, to create an ident for a television channel, a title sequence for an adaptation for a book of our choice or a campaign video for a charity or cause. As outlined in the brief, the purpose of this module is 'to develop an appreciation of the considerations of producing work for a given audience or context.'

For the first brief, 'A Tale In The Sting' we are encouraged to explore the relationship between content, audience and and context in relation to the effective communication of ideas. A critical and conceptual approach should be paid to the development of storyboards, previsualisation and asset creation, and attention must be paid to the commercial, social, ethical and political context of animation as a part of broader visual studies and visual culture.

As a part of the other brief, 'Another Dimension' we are expected to produce a develop a three-dimensional model truck in Maya as an introduction to the software. The task is designed to introduce us to the basic principles of the software as well as help us gain a greater understanding of 3D modelling as a creative discipline. Upon completion of said task, the brief states that should we wish we can apply what we've learned to our other brief.

As the last Studio Practice module of the year,  I would like to really push myself to create something demonstrating the progress I've made since beginning on the course in September, as well as demonstrating my ability to take into account feedback to improve the quality of my work. I will also make an effort to ensure the quality of my documentation correlates with the quality of my practical work, as I have found with past module I have focused too much time on either one or the other.