The Art of the Title Sequence

Dinner for Schmucks


"Sometimes I'll be working on a piece, and I'll think, "No, this is bullshit." So I will literally rub bull excrement on the piece as a metaphor." - Kieran Draper

The wooden case is opened and inside, an array of tiny accoutrements. From it a tiny hat is removed while the credits sidle in, superimposed. And as a mouse figurine has her hair dyed vermilion, Paul McCartney's melancholic voice shepherds us through the opening titles for the delightfully downcast 2010 screwball comedy, Dinner for Schmucks.

The song, "The Fool on the Hill," kicks off a journey through a series of close-ups of itty-bitty objects being selected, constructed, and assembled. The minutiae gives way to several astonishing tableau vivants of miniatures—a bespectacled mouse and his redheaded mousette—engaging in the sweetest of romantic clichés, demonstrating an artistry so fine it leans toward obsession. The cherry on top is the whimsical and varied custom typography: the letters slink in and out of sight, vulnerable and idiosyncratic, wavering between wide and narrow, further lending the titles a sense of clumsy sensitivity.

Kyle Snarr for StruckAxiom:

“We wanted to create a naive type face that would feel done by Steve's character's hand without it being too precious or quirky. Likewise the animation had to tread lightly on the picture so as to support and not distract from the action on screen.”


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