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.

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.

Imaginary Forces' opening title sequence for the film "The Number 23" features spreading blood splatter and a changing typography featuring historic events surrounding, what else, the infinite variations on the integer of 23.

Studio Daily's in depth interview with title sequence director Michelle Dougherty

What immediately comes to mind upon viewing these end titles as a stand alone consideration, is that there is great discipline in the master calligrapher's graceful yet contrasting Chinese brush strokes.

His magic carpet ride reminds one of Masaki Kobayashi's "Hoichi the Earless"; only here the Chinese characters -and Kanji, respectively- become life-taking daggers rather than a life-saving shield. Too, I am reminded of splattered ink at the point of impact and the panning flight of a classic aircraft -both seen in the aforeposted "El Don," in addition to owing an incalculable debt to the "300" end titles and, in a true sense, to Frank Miller.

While some frames seem partially rendered (exploding diamond? the odd alignment and spacing of the trekkers? an uninspired mouth of a cave?) others offer flashes of originality (snake-strokes from a blood sun, lettered mountaintop, inkblot blood of fleshless adversaries, a halved opponent, yetis in profile).