"Only Sanity Can Keep You Alive."
In clever shadow play, the title type is the very thing you pass in the darkness that makes your blood run cold. With an issuance of fractal lobotomies and mirrored banishments worthy of Zod, the opening titles to John Carpenter's The Ward begin with woodcut prints from the middle ages depicting men and women racked to the tools of torture. Glass shards fly in the final moments before death sentences are carried out, and we are shown the early days of mental science in which similar and yet more evil devices were used to "cure” the insane.
The designers, known for their work on Up in the Air and Juno, exacerbate the already robust sense of dread that exists regarding the sensed helplessness that has become synonymous with the mental profession in the viewers' collective minds.
Sex. Power. Murder. Amen.
In The Borgias lush opening sequence, pious palms grip rosaries as beads of ichor seep through canvas bedaubed, inking avarice and lusty limbs groaning. Bon Boullogne's Triumph of Neptune, Caravaggio's Death of the Virgin, Agnolo Bronzino's Exposure of Luxury: these moldering Renaissance and Baroque masterpieces murmur heavy the echo of desire. And when stillness overcomes the wild flow of exquisite stains, there gapes a single eye, staring back.
"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.
“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.”
Steve Seeley and Studio Dialog paint a gritty picture of heritage and struggle with their opening for Blackstone, Showcase Channel's gripping Aboriginal drama. In the show's title sequence, mounds of dusty earth blow across archive photos and snapshots of modern day tribe life and the children of First Nation branch out from their ancestors' shadows.
"Once again you are tuned in to the frequency of the erotic." - Bert Rodriguez
**Editorial Note: We have marked this post “Not Safe For Work” because elements of the reference art and production notes contain nudity.**
In the title sequence for Sebastian Gutierrez’s Elektra Luxx, a psychedelic melange of bullets, guns, and art deco ornaments materialize around the nude silhouette of the title character. As Elektra teases the audience with her own bawdy burlesque, she reprises her various adult film roles wearing next to nothing.
With our latest entry, Moises Arancibia of SMOG outlines how he and his Chilean supergroup used a bucket of paint and 3D software to make sure that Elektra lived up to her titillating reputation.
This is the last bit of dialogue before the opening titles to Robert Rodriguez’s throwback exploitation flick Machete and a fitting MO for the unconventional mavericks at Troublemaker Studios. The sequence starts with a flamethrower devouring a Mexican hideout as the roiling smoke and flame quickly degrades into gritty lobby cards corrupted by dust and scratches.
Machete’s title sequence is a colorful parade of sneering villains, vixens, and an arsenal of menacing guns and knives. While the sequence sets the stage for a gory, over-the-top revenge romp, it also succeeds in grounding the entire film in another time and place. As the grainy titles scrape along at 1½ feet per second, the audience is transported back from their reclined seats at present day cineplexes to the nostalgic era of drive-ins and drafthouses.
In this week’s feature, Kurt Volk (Art Director at Troublemaker Studios) talks with Art of the Title about Guacamole guns, the influence of Coke commercials, and the benefits of working under the same roof as producer/director Robert Rodriguez.
"Tell me how I should be. Just tell me. I'll do it." —Dean
Jim Helton and Charles Christopher Rubino's end credits for Derek Cianfrance's Blue Valentine is a last look of what was and what will not be.
In a managed duality of the intimate and the expansive, a hypnotic racked bokeh of celestial colors spreads across the night sky with Grizzly Bear's "Alligator" conducting the atmospherics, elevating the experience of the film to something glorious.
The title sequence taken with the trailer (below for your viewing pleasure) reminds us of this following scene from one of the greatest films of all time, "A Thousand Clowns."
