Favorite Opening Credit Sequence

[Keith Mottram]

Oh, and can anybody tell me what Sheena Easton was doing in the opening credits of FOR YOUR EYES ONLY??!!:

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Sheena was actually in acute pain throughout the entire shoot and hated the process. She had a harness created so that she couldn't move her head at all. keeping her completely rigid and the shoot went on for quite a while if I remember correctly.

 

Of recent films Catch Me If You Can and Hulk stand out.

 

Keith

[Guest fstop]

jaan-

 

Jules et Jim!! How could I forget to mention that one???!! :D :D :D Classic! Thanks for bringing it up!

 

Going back to Pink Panther-

 

I think The Return of the Pink Panther has got to have the most egotistical DP credit seen in ANY movie. Not only is it Geoffrey Unsworth with his distinguished "Photographed by" title, the font is in the style of a jewel encrusted fire escape/ladder, and the cartoon panther struts all the way down it to the sound of Mancini's proudest music!

 

From what I remember, the SON OF PINK PANTHER title sequence is technically very well executed, and has the toon cat interacting "Roger Rabbit" style with singer Bobby McFerrin (!) and composer Mancini. Mancini passes his baton on to Pinky, who then directs Mr. McFerrin in an entirely accapella version of the Pink Panther theme! The integration of live action and 2D is very inspired, so much so that there is reactive pink lighting reflected onto McFerrin and Mancini whenever they interact with the Panther! I seem to recall that our old friend Dick Bush gets a nice big fat gleaming, ego-priding credit during this sequence for all to see. A little unfair, in my opinion, given that the entire visually impressive title sequence was shot by Adam Greenberg outside of Bush's pallette (directed in LA by Blake Edwards son Geoffrey).

[Robert Edge]

Jean-Pierre Juenet, in the opening credits for Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain, shows a wry sense of humour.

[Guest fstop]

Keith

 

I remember hearing a similar story. It's too bad, because the background imagery in the FYEO title sequence is among the more bearable Binder unleashed in the 1980s!

 

jaan-

 

Jules et Jim!! How could I forget to mention that one???!! :D :D :D Classic! Thanks for bringing it up!

 

Adam-

 

Goldeneye was Kleinman, yes. When the film came out there was a really good article by Quantel on their DOMINO digital system that talked through how they did the compositing. This was when Framestore use to be doing UK TV adverts exclusively (before a few years ago when they merged with the prolific in Hollywood Computer Film Company), so it was a big thing for UK VFX! Smoke and Mirrors did a great job on THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH's opening titles too.

[Guest Tina Coggins]

I know this is a stupid question, but I'm willing to risk looking stupid in order to learn something.

 

As someone with a background in design and graphics, I've always loved fonts. The mixture of appropriate fonts with the foreshadowing that often occurs in opening credit sequences is something I look forward to with every movie I see. So, I've always wondered: who does this? Are the opening credits farmed out? Does the editor do this? I've always thought it would be wonderful to be able to work on this part of a film.

 

*blushing, but wanting to know*

[Guest fstop]

It'll be the title house. Up until the early 90s these were still being hand painted. Nowadays it's all done digitally. Theoretically an editor could do them in Avid (and this isn't unheard of even in Hollywood).

 

However, there's a difference between say the basic Times New Roman stuff you'd see on a Merchant Ivory picture compared to those slit-scanned graphics from Superman. It depends on the movie. If it all ends up going very 3D then an effects house will step in.

 

On the third row down of this link, you can see the film,ing of the END titles for Superman III. Talk about artistry!!:

CAMERA EFFECTS LINK

 

 

I've heard there's always work at titles houses! ;)

[Guest Tina Coggins]

Wow, Tim, artistry is right -- thanks for the link. And for the answer, too. I don't think that's ultimately what I'll want to do, but I have to say that I would like to gain experience in a few different areas on my way to where I want to be, so who knows?

[Gordon Highland]

Motion graphics is a very tough industry to crack. Much like video, the work is very easy to do at a low level, leading people to think anyone can do it. Most of us have done titles on the Avid or even some seemingly complex After Effects animations, but the folks who do this kind of stuff for features are very very high end and dedicated to their craft, often working their way up through a variety of ranks first. It's often very much a group effort.

 

I'm certianly not saying you can't do you own titles, but aspiring to this level of work would disappoint most. I was on a couple of After Effects user groups for a long time, and I'd thought I was pretty good at these things myself (maybe even changing career paths), but the professionals who do this stuff every day will fry your brain with their knowledge, both technically as far as programming and motion, but also just good design instincts as well.

[Guest Tina Coggins]

There are so many fascinating areas of filmmaking, and this, to me, is definitely one of them. I think I'd have the design skills, but as for the rest... well, as you say, it's high-level stuff. If it's what you want to do, then why not, though? Everyone has to start somewhere, right?

[Jason Maeda]

blow up

farenheit 451

[Chris Keth]

This definately isn't complicated motion graphics or anything but I really like the title opening for "School of Rock." I thought it was a very cool, creative way to do it and seemlessly move to the first scene.

[Jaan Shenberger]

there's really no such thing as a title house anymore, at least for big studio films. a title house used to physically create the titles onto a hi-con image and photograph it on an animation stand, and then run the footage and the titles through an optical printer. obviously, it would get more complicated with lighting effects and multicolor designs, but generally speaking it always involved an oxberry stand and an optical printer. there are still people doing things this way, but their clientele seems to be primarily student films and very low budget productions.

 

the title house would often handle creation of the design, animation and plain titles, and do the optical printing work themselves, handling both the "artistic" and technical duties.

 

nowadays, one place does all the art/design stuff, completes it digitally, then sends off the rendered files to a separate shop to output to neg. usually, the design shops that create the title sequences also do similar stuff for tv & commercials (designing motion graphics for film versus tv is basically the same, aside from framerate, image size and bit depth), as well as interactive and print design. this is because computers and software have removed the necessity to have a thorough undestanding of emulsion, light and optical printing in order to do film titles, so it's design people more so than film people doing title sequences, though some shops are more visual effects oriented than design.

 

tina, if you're interested in doing title sequences for films, then you would approach your career from a design/animation angle, and not really from the film industry. title sequences are generally considered as high end jobs (because of visibility, and not necessarily budget) in the motion graphics world, so it usually takes some time to work up to that level. there are dozens of design shops doing film title work... picture mill, yu+co, imaginary forces, and r/ga are some of the biggees. i'd advise prying your way in via an internship while also trying to build up a demo reel.

 

hope this helps,

jaan

[Guest Tina Coggins]

Jaan, I guess the animation aspect of it would just kill it for me, as in my opinion, working with animation software is the antithesis of art. I certainly don't profess to know much about anything when it comes to this stuff, but I do look forward to learning and, hopefully, finding my niche in the industry.

 

I didn't mean to hijack the thread with my questions, but I do thank those who addressed them; I am learning so much on this board. Thank you.

[Boone Hudgins]

Undertow and Hostage are two pretty current examples of interesting title sequences.

[Guest Tina Coggins]

While the film itself probably won't make anyone's list of the decade's greatest film, I think the use of fonts and movment in ALONG CAME A SPIDER is very clever. It's mostly dialogue and abstracted lights. Layered over this, they use a fuzzy, white Holstein font for the lettering. Some of letters drop down like spiders on a web.

Edited August 14, 2005 by Tina Coggins

[Keith Mottram]

I guess the animation aspect of it would just kill it for me, as in my opinion, working with animation software is the antithesis of art.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

why? are you babbling or serious?

 

keith

[Robert Edge]

Keith,

 

Personally, I can understand why someone might think that animation as an art is being undermined by current technology and the resource demands of that technology. The differences between traditional animation and computer generated animation are nowhere more striking than in the DVD for Chris Landreth's Ryan, for which Landreth won an Academy Award this year.

 

Ryan Larkin, who is the subject of the film, drew every single frame of his films by hand. He did not use assistants, and contrary to what many people apparently think, his film Walking was not rotoscoped. A film that ran a few minutes took many months of work. Landreth, on the other hand, makes extensive use of computers. I have no doubt that Ryan Larkin's work is art, and very good art at that. To my taste, Landreth's work is much less compelling, and I wonder whether his methods have something to do with it.

 

For info on this DVD, see http://www.cinematography.com/forum2004/in...899entry51899

 

I find it interesting that Ryan Larkin's films were dirt cheap to make (his time, paint, paper and a cameraman to record what he created) and that Landreth's film about Larkin, according to Landreth's own statement on the DVD, cost well over US$1 million. If you look at the credits, you can see that Larkin's films were made by himself with the aid of a few colleagues whose job it was to record his creation, and that Landreth needed a small army to make his film about Larkin. There is no question that Larkin's work is at least as good as Landreth's (Landreth himself thinks that Larkin is brilliant), so you have to wonder what exactly is gained by pissing away huge amounts of money, bringing on board about a hundred people and making a short film effectively by committee. What drives this? Is it faster? Doubtful - I suspect that Landreth's film took at least as much time to make as one of Larkin's, quite possibly longer, and maybe a lot longer. Is it lack of talent? Is it the technology?

 

As you probably know, Michel Gondry, director of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and several interesting music videos, comes out of an animation/stop motion background. On the DVD about his work, he acknowledges his debt to Norman McLaren, who also happens to have been Ryan Larkin's mentor at the National Film Board of Canada. To my taste, Gondry's earlier films, which were made very simply, are very attractive, in some ways more attractive than some of his more recent whiz bang material.

[Keith Mottram]

I guess it all harks back to the phrase that 'one must suffer for their art'. this is a load of old bollocks. as someone who has done an extensive amount of stop frame animation- both models and hand drawn i understand fully the apeal and the quality that can be achieved. I am also a massive fan of traditional animators many of whom are a big influence on my personal work. I do however have a huge belief that computers are an excellent tool and to try and say that 'animation software is the antithesis of art' is both incredibly naive and crass. the only people i know that would say things like this are bitter old codgers who are scared of the posibilities of the digital tool set. it also makes absolutly no sense whatsoever. you would have to search far and wide to find an animator that makes no use of computers- most stop frame animators i know now use digital aquisiton even if they are not directly animating in after effects, toon boom, flash etc. Michel Gondry who is a true visionary uses computers incredibly inteligently, especially as invisible effects, it is to his credit that he also uses traditional techniques when apropriate rather than relying on digital effects. An example of his animation background can also be found in the chemical brothers video 'star guitar'. This is a stunningly powerful idea, perfectly executed, which could not have been done using 'analog' techniques.

 

further more to even use the phrase 'antithesis of art' to be denotes a distinct lack of knowledge- who can actually say that they have a large enough knowledge to make this judgement? Now if you were to say that a piece of animation could have benifited from the use of an old fasioned technique then you have grounds for comentary, but to generalise in this manner is similar to saying that you cannot take a fashion photograph on a negtative smaller than 6x6. As everyone on this forum is probably aware that was Vogue's mantra until Bailey shot with 35mm (and then blew up his contact sheet so Vogue wouldn't know). You could say the only antithesis of art is someone/ something that believes that art is, or should be, structured by rules and/ or techniques. 'free your mind and your ass will follow' as George Clinton says.

 

keith

[Jaan Shenberger]

i want to make it clear that i am saying this respectfully...

 

a camera is a tool. paint is a tool. an optical printer is a tool. software is a tool. none of these tools have ever automatically created anything notable by itself. it always required the skilled mind and hands of a person. whenever a tool comes along that makes it easier for a person to create certain things, it results in higher quality work for whoever's using it. it also results in generating animosity from persons who have been doing it the old fashioned way (and especially people who've been making money by doing it the old fashioned way). with 2D animation, software has basically replaced the animation stand & optical printer. stop motion and 3D cgi are not enemies, they're siblings. software has allowed traditional techniques like stop motion and hand drawn cell animation to be produced quicker, cheaper, and of higher quality.

 

r.edge, if you don't like a particular animator's work that was created with software, but love the work of an animator that does things traditionally, then that's probably because the one using tradtional techniques simply happens to be a superior craftsman and artist. if you want to investigate your suspicions about the relationship between method and compellingness, try checking out the canadian film board's archives. you'll see animation works of varied techniques with incredible craftsmanship and artistic merit (canada is to animation what france is to cinema).

 

tina, try spending some time learning after effects (software). if you're interested in bringing your animation ideas to life, then you will quickly fall in love with the capabilities and options it gives you. saying that you want to be an animator but refuse to use software is like saying you wanna be an editor and only want to use a steenbeck. not only is it foolish, it's relegating your career to DOA status.

 

and the point about the use of digital animation tools being more expensive than traditional animation techniques is very far from the truth. animation software has created an explosion of interest in animation over the world and there is more animation being produced today than ever before. and much of it is by amatuers sitting in their bedrooms using software who wouldn't have access to a pegbar, camera, animation stand, or optical printer and probably couldn't financially afford to produce their ideas, even if they did have access.

 

also, mclaren was a great innovator and experimented with new techniques, which makes me confident in saying that if he were alive today he'd undoubtedly be working with digital tools-- and of course using it to do things that would blow people's minds.

[Guest Tina Coggins]

why? are you babbling or serious?

 

keith

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Wow, I had no idea my comment, based upon my own experience (hence saying it was my opinion, and not some sort of royal proclamation...), would cause such a rukus. Babbling? :) I'm serious. I'm talking my opinion and experience only, so no one has to agree, eh?

 

I think that R. Edge more understands what I was getting at with this (and by the way, R, that DVD looks fascinating, thanks for mentioning it). Fact is, I'm not at all a math person. When I went from cell animation to a couple of versions of Autodesk's Studio Max some years ago, I hated it. I didn't want to work with vertices and all that geometry, so FOR ME, it was the antithesis of art, because I had to think so much about the underlying math of the program that it removed the artistic experience FOR ME.

 

Keith, does it hurt you, or diminish your career, if I say that in my opinion it felt less creative? No need to feel threatened by my experience. This was MY experience, and it is valid TO ME. If it's a different experience for you or someone else, more power to you. I love the effects, generally, that I see on the screen, but it doesn't mean I want to be involved in the process of creation myself, because it's not my thing, and this is based upon my own experience. I find namecalling to be unhelpful, really.

 

Edited to add: jaan, thank you for your recommendation. This is software that I look forward to learning. I've dabbled a little, but not enough to really get much of a sense of it.

Edited August 14, 2005 by Tina Coggins

[Robert Edge]

Keith,

 

Cool your jets :) If you read what I wrote, instead of what someone else wrote, you might notice that I simply said that I can understand a particular point of view and I raised some questions. There are people who prefer to make dovetail joints by hand than by machine. There are even people who think that the former have more character. Having spent part of last weekend at the Metropolitan Museum of Art looking at an exhibit of furniture made by the Newport cabinetmaker John Townsend (see http://www.metmuseum.org/special/se_event....nk=special_c1b), I'm just not prepared to write off such people as ignorant "old codgers" who are afraid of technology. When I wrote my post, the idea was to generate some discussion, not invite a diatribe.

 

Jaan,

 

I don't think that technologies are just tools. They don't just affect how we make things, they shape what we make.

 

If you examine how Larkin made his films, it seems evident that software would not have improved either the quality or the speed of his output. As it is, he declined to use the technology that was available to him (e.g. rotoscope) because it wasn't consistent with how he wanted to work and what he wanted to make. He wanted to draw every picture himself, apparently freehand, and he clearly was interested in something other than speed and efficiency. For good or ill (and I want to emphasize "for good or ill"), software would have changed both his manner of working and the final product.

 

I'm not an expert on animation, but my understanding is that current technology has a distinct impact on how animated television programmes are made and what those programmes, such as South Park and The Simpsons, look like. If this is true, I'm not convinced that we are witnessing a new dawn. I think that South Park is amusing, but I sure don't think that it is visually impressive. Nor am I blown away by current animated feature films. I agree that there is a lot of animation out there these days. I'm just trying to figure out why I find so little of it compelling and why I think that it looks so mechanical. Maybe I'm visually impaired, maybe I'm not looking at the right films, maybe it's a matter of giving the technology more time.

 

The other thing that I can't figure out is why Chris Landreth's film cost something like $1.5 million and Ryan Larkin's films cost next to nothing. I just don't see the money on the screen, and Landreth's film isn't a better film than the one of Larkin's that is embedded in it. What did spending all this money, and bringing in about a hundred collaborators, actually contribute in terms of either efficiency or quality? As far as I can figure out, a lot of it went to turning motion picture footage into graphic images. In other words, what we appear to have here is a very fancy, and very expensive, Rotoscope process. Is that the point?

 

To be honest, this question of artistic control and resources is part of a larger question that I find confusing. I don't understand how it is that Eric Rohmer and Nestor Almendros can make Pauline a la plage (Pauline at the Beach) with a crew of five and a budget that would be pocket money in Hollywood, whereas it apparently takes hundreds of people and millions and millions of dollars to make a feature film, regardless of quality, in Los Angeles. I'm not asking this question to be smart. I really don't know the answer. The closest I've come to an answer is what Almendros has to say in his autobiography about Hollywood filmmaking. He's pretty caustic, but maybe he didn't know what he was talking about.

 

Jaan and Keith, if you guys can recommend some animated films that you think are damned good and involve the use of the latest cutting-edge technology, I'd be obliged. I like much of Michel Gondry's work and I'd like to see the work of others who have his kind of talent. By the way, have you had a chance to see Ryan, or any of Landreth's earlier films or Larkin's films? I may be ambivalent about Landreth, but I don't think that watching his films is a waste of time, and Larkin's films hold up beautifully despite the passage of about 40 years.

 

[This post has been edited]

[Jaan Shenberger]

r.edge,

 

i think there was a miscommunication. i didn't say that animation should only be created wholly with software and that anything created by hand is obsolete or inferior. i said that even if you create animation by hand, you would be a fool to not involve the use of digital tools somewhere in the process.

 

i'm guessing that chris landreth's film cost $1.5 million because someone (partly the film board) granted him a budget of that size, so he spent it. animation, regardless of the technique, is generally labor-intensive. more people working on it means that it'll get done faster. i assume based on his reputation and past work, he was able to get a budget, so he spent it on hiring additional animators.

 

the difference in budget between landreth and larkin's films is simple... larkin did it for love, on his own, of his free will, while most of the animators on landreth's were paid a wage or stipend. if you were to hire a bunch of animators to produce a work that emulated larkin's style, then the cost would be comparable.

 

you're right: "current technology has a distinct impact on how animated television programmes are made and what those programmes look like". the impact is that there are now many many more options in terms of technique or look that you can produce and still stay within budget and time constraints. south park is actually a digital emulation of a very old "analog" technique (cut paper stopmotion). they did it digitally because it's cheaper, easier, and quicker than doing it by hand. and those three factors = higher overall quality when you're working in situation with a finite budget and timetable. also, the simpsons are drawn by hand. just like all commercially produced cell animation, instead of adding the colors by hand and photographing all the numerous layers together on glass on an animation stand, the b/w line drawings are scanned and colorized and composited together digitally. at some point, new tools changed carpentry, allowing people to create accurate dovetails by hand more easily. before that, they probably weren't worth the time and energy, so carpenters used older jointing techniques. i'm glad they now have the feasible option of including handmade dovetails in their work.

 

and just like cell animation done nowadays, larkin's films, especially the colorful & highly textured "walking", would have benefitted from being scanned and output digitally to neg.

 

i think you simply like organic texture and a hand-drawn look in animation, and not really dislike digitally-aided animation. to see some very well-crafted, digitally aided animation check out the curious pictures or wildbrain websites. i can guarrantee that everything they've done after 1995 has had some digital dabbling. why? because they know what they're doing and they know how to create the best final product under budgetary and time constraints.

[Robert Edge]

"i think you simply like organic texture and a hand-drawn look"

 

Well, you've got that right. Same reason that I like Van Gogh. I just hope that nobody gets it into his head that a Van Gogh painting can be improved by being scanned and played around with in Photoshop :)

 

It's interesting that you mention the word "organic", because it is precisely the word that one would use to describe Larkin's work and the last word that one would use to describe Landreth's work and, for that matter, most of the computer generated animation that I've seen.

 

As you may know, Landreth's resources included the students in the animation programme at Seneca College in Toronto, whom he thanked during his acceptance of the Academy Award. So it would appear that you are right when you say that "most" of the animators on his project got paid, assuming that the number of people who got paid exceeded the number who didn't. Not that I have a problem with this. It is a great thing that students were involved in this project, and that Seneca got a public boost during the Awards ceremony. However, I guess that means that the real cost of the film was in fact in excess of US$1.5 million. There is only one more question. Did the US$1.5 million include, or exclude, the cost of sending Landreth to Monaco and Cannes (depicted in Lawrence Green's making-of documentary) while Larkin, the raison d'etre of the film, was panhandling on the street and living at the Salvation Army?

 

Jaan, thanks very much for the references to the curious pictures and wildbrain websites. I'll check them out.

[Keith Mottram]

sorry if i came off agressive, it wasn't my intention, i just get tired of hearing about digital tools being the death of all artistic endeavour. i've seen and heard all the arguements and a few years later no one gives a monkeys. we might all be heading for some T2 nightmare for all i know, but there is no denying progress so to speak. this does not diminish traditional craftsmen, i for one frequently prefer something with a little bit more of a human touch, organic- even rough round the edges. the most popular animation on my animation reel (although to be honest I have not done much non-graphic animation for a couple of years) is a hybrid of hand drawn and digital work. even when working in the digital realm i use a pen and tablet, which i personally do not consider different to using pen and ink. thats just me, i've always been an early adopter of technology and find it exiting not daunting.

 

the difference in the budgets is explaind by the simple fact that non-commercial animation has no money so no one can get paid. i wont mention names but i know people who live on toast to work for certain animators. if anyone's interested in some truly stunning 'traditionally' made animation of recent years, i suggest the Brothers Quay (watch out for there new film- The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes. this will be bonkers and features live action sequences shot on Cinealta for the HD readers). they are the bastard yank children of Jan Svankmajer-surely a genius in anyone's book. for the live action readers in the forum, both of these are a huge influence on Terry Gilliam.

 

me i'm off to watch the incredibles for the gazillianth time.

 

peace,

 

keith

[Robert Edge]

Keith,

 

Thanks for the reference to the new T&S Quay film. I'll see if I can get my hands on a copy.

 

Cheers.