Oct 5, 2009
Bored to Death (+ Tom Barham Q&A)
The titular tome spreads its pages to typography set illustrative; the text embroiders the imagery as shapes and labels. With what sounds like the jingle of loose change, the type scatters and lays as lovely a refuse as turned tree leaves. It is Curious Pictures' title design for HBO’s “Bored to Death” by Creator/Protagonist/Writer/Executive Producer Jonathan Ames.
Art of the Title: How did you become involved with the project? How did the idea of animating the type come about?
Tom Barham: We were approached by HBO to pitch the series titles. I was familiar with Jonathan Ames' work. When I found out that the series was semi-autobiographical — the story about a writer who hires himself out as a PI - it made sense that the entire world should be a fictional one created from the text of his imagination. We used the original copy from the short story in McSweeney's for the characters as well as all of the backgrounds.
ATS: Including elements of noir or neo-noir seems an obvious choice. What lead you away from that?
TB: Exactly that — it was too easy. We did include a few noir-esque touches like the book cover and general lighting of the pages.
ATS: What was your approach to directing the opening credit sequence?
TB: I wanted to do a combination character and flip-book animation to move the Jonathan character from location to location in a book format. Additionally, since the characters were made from text contained within the book where they exist they needed to move and interact with each other as if they were emitting or leaking letter forms and words.
ATS: What were the first questions you had and how were the answers arrived at?
TB: What’s the idea here? How can we create a sequence that is organic to the subject matter and that communicates both the intent of the show and the intent of the author?
ATS: What was the process for working with the artist Dean Haspiel?
TB: Dean had worked with Jonathan on his novel "The Alcoholic" and done some drawings for the show.
ATS: Do you have any interesting stories related the development of this sequence?
TB: What was most unique was working with Jonathan Ames. It’s unusual for the author of the story to be so intimately involved with the production of the title sequence. He provided a great deal of insight about the characters.
ATS: Can you give us an example of something you took away from this collaborative project? Which gives you a greater satisfaction, collaboration or a project that is entirely your own?
C&A: Both have their merits. For the most part though, I think collaborations provide the greatest opportunity for personal growth. The challenges are more numerous and involve a greater levels of understanding of people and their points of view versus your own personal take on things. The best ventures are usually those that tap into other people’s talents as well as your own.
Director: Tom Barham
Production Company: Curious Pictures
Executive Producer: Mary Knox
Head of Production: John Cline
Producer: Paul Schneider
Animation: Anthony Santoro, Marci Ichimura, Mark Rubo, Mark Pecoraro
Illustrator/Artist: Dean Haspiel
Pre Visualization: Mark Corotan
Executive Producers: Sarah Condon, Troy Miller, Stephanie Davis, Dave Becky, Jonathan Ames
Producers: Anna Dokoza, Brad Carpenter
Client: HBO/Dakota Films
Just commented to my girlfriend last night that while the sequence was pretty, I thought it felt too broad and yet monochromatic, stylistically, compared to the show, which is both very colorful, and yet very understated and almost melancholy. Not sure I was crazy about the pairing.
That was wonderful! Reminded me of flipping through an old Encyclopedia Brown paperback…
I’d like to give a shout out to my son Jeff Nelson who assisted with the Emmy award winning ” Bored to Death” title sequence as an animation intern at Curious Pictures last summer.