Watery cobblestone logos and longitudinal linotype layer, lace and lash Prologue Films’ opening and end credit work for Guy Ritchie’s “Sherlock Holmes.”

The sequence creative director Danny Yount, a self-taught Emmy-winning designer/director produced main titles for Six Feet Under and The Grid while at Digital Kitchen. He currently resides at Prologue Films and has created titles for Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Iron Man and RockNRolla.

Art of the Title: Take us through your artistic process – how do you begin a project like Sherlock Holmes? What was your approach to the logos and the beginning and end titles?

Danny Yount: I got a call from director Guy Ritchie while he was in the middle stages of principal photography. He liked what we made for RockNRolla and asked us to consider something good for Sherlock Holmes. We were sent a script and got very excited about it after realizing the more edgy and fun interpretation of the classic character of Holmes. So Ilya Abulhanov and myself made a couple of ideas (examples 1a & 1b).

Example 1a: Early concept from Danny Yount (Click to Enlarge)

Example 1b: Early concept from IIya Abulhanov (Click to Enlarge)

I was invited to fly out to present them at one of the sets in London and see some of the film, so I had a very strong sense after that of where they wanted to go visually. The brief I was given was to do a live action shoot that involved a lot of newspaper headlines from the late 1800’s, which would give a little history to the early beginnings of Holmes and Watson and lead into the first scene of the film following the last headline on top of a stack of newspapers laid at the doorstep. We also wanted to show part of the printing process of that time period using the linotype machine and wood block type headline compositions.

After going back and forth a bit we concluded that it be a macro shoot that was very graphic, so we rented some time at a printing museum and set up several still shoots to get all the material we needed for storyboards (example 2a, 2b & 2c). I also shot some test footage with the Canon 5D to do a style test (example 3a & 3b). They liked the presentation and told us they would get back to us.

Example 2a: Printing press concepts (Click to Enlarge)

Example 2b: Printing press concepts (Click to Enlarge)

Example 2c: Printing press concepts (Click to Enlarge)

Several months went by and the film had taken shape more so they decided to lose the headlines sequence. So they went from wanting a full main title to having a short main title and an end credit sequence. They also wanted the end credits to be an anthem to the film – using highlights from the movie. Designers Henry Hobson, Simon Clowes and Lisa Bolan teamed up and made the storyboards (example 4). I decided to go into a different direction with mine (example 5). In retrospect I think they were a little dark though (ha).

Once they approved of the look we had about 4 weeks from start to finish, and we were also given a special effect sequence. It was a lot of work, even for a company our size. But we have a great group of talented and dedicated people who did what it took to get it done.

Example 3a: Printing press motion test (Click to Watch Quicktime)

Example 3b: Printing press motion test (Click to Watch Quicktime)

ATS: How large was the production team, and how closely do you work with them?

DY: We broke up into a 3 separate teams – with a total of about 14 people working around the clock. The end credit sequence required the most people by far, as there was so much detail in the illustration and transition work. The illustration took a long time to make. I’m not sure if Jorge slept very much. The main title and Hallucination VFX team was myself and Brett. The opening logos Jose and Todd.

Example 4: End credit storyboard – Hobson, Clowes and Bolan (Click to Enlarge)

I work very closely with everyone and I am always part of the process. I owe that to the client and I especially owe that to the younger designers who are building their own body of work and careers. I also learn a lot from them – they always bring in new ways of doing things. And they learn from me as I help them to avoid the same mistakes I made when I was their age.

Example 5: End credit storyboard by Danny Yount (Click to Enlarge)

ATS: In the opening logos, is there any part of the cobblestones that are real?

DY: Nope – just well crafted 3D. Jose and Todd are masters. The client originally wanted the logos formed out of pools of water but Chris Sanchez came up with the idea of making them out of the cobblestones, which they loved. Jose made an excellent shading system that nailed the look of the wet gritty surfaces and the weathered stones, which took a lot of love to shape into very uneven bricks.

That’s the trick with making good CG – you have to spend a lot of time modeling the imperfections or it will miss the mark. It will look stiff and look like a video game. Same with the camera work – you have to make cameras that feel heavy and are hard to throw around. The more of a human touch you can bring into CG the better it looks and feels.

They also wanted to have a carriage break frame and cut to the opening shot but I thought it would be more interesting to just wip the camera up to the first shot. Todd used camera projection techniques for it to marry properly. I also wanted leaves to blow across the surface but we just ran out of time.

Opening Studio Logos (Click to Watch Quicktime)

ATS: The Illustrated Paper + Illustrated Times motif that permeates both the opening and closing title sequences – period sketches speckled with patterns in the clues and fine detail in the patterns. What tools did you use to accomplish this?

DY: A lot of human hands, a photocopier, ink footage and a few photoshop filters.

ATS: What is it to push for something more than the audience is used to? Do you wrestle with taking creative risks? How do you balance and/or meld doing something because it strikes you vs. doing something overtly reflective of the body of the film? When do you hold to a vision and when do your experiment?

DY: I always experiment and I always push. That is what client wants and it is what I am being paid to do. But if I ignore the brief then anything I do becomes worthless to them. Or if I design something that is too abstract and self-inflated then it becomes meaningless no matter how beautiful it is. It has to communicate and it has to be interesting and stimulating – in that order. It is funny though that we call these “creative risks” – I think the only risk you take is when you ignore the client. And if you are going to do that then you better also have their version or you may get fired from the assignment. It’s a matter of trust – that’s all. And once that is established most smart clients will give you freedom.

Hallucination VFX (Click to Watch Quicktime)

ATS: What are some of the lessons in title design that you’ve used in your process? Did you learn anything new on Sherlock Holmes?

DY: It has to work perfectly with the film. I’m a guitarist so I like to look at it like a solo break – I get my short time in the spotlight but I have to use it to make the song better. If I play sloppy it makes it worse. If I play too fast and show off it might get interesting but it is inappropriate.

ATS: What gets you thinking differently? What new technologies are you embracing?

DY: Travel and people and nature. I’m interested in some of the newer apps like Houdini and Nuke. I would also like to buy myself a Canon 7d sometime soon.

ATS: What brings you the most satisfaction? Seeing the final piece onscreen? Or is it the process that brings you joy?

DY: Both. I love the process – I get to learn so many things and get to sharpen my skills, but I also get very “locked in” to what I’m doing. There’s a level of commitment to the process that makes you go very deep and explore every aspect – it becomes apparent to you that you are created for that very thing. And when you realize that you pour yourself into every part of the process of exploration. It is only something that those who have been there can understand. We are created to create. When we realize what we are good at and pursue it with all we have it becomes very rewarding intellectually as well as spiritually.

Sherlock Holmes Main Titles (Click to Watch Quicktime)

As far as seeing it on the screen – you forget all the pain you have been through. It is a cliché I know but it is like giving birth. You forget the hardship and long hours and stressed relationships and you walk away with a satisfaction that you did your best. And everyone you worked with is better as a result if you handled the job well.

ATS: Following on from that, how does that satisfaction manifest itself to you?

DY: It makes me grow as an individual by learning from mistakes as well as successes. It is very humbling to be able to do for a living what I love.

ATS: So what excites you outside of the design field?

DY: My family and riding my dirt bike and photography. I also love speaking at conferences – I meet so many cool people and get to see new places.

ATS: What’s next for you?

DY: I’m working on Iron Man 2 and things are looking good so far.

Art of the Title: How did you become involved with the project?

Garson Yu: It was six years ago. I had never worked with Ang Lee before Hulk 2003.
I was called to meet with Ang and producer Larry Franco. They met with me and with people from Imaginary Forces. I was picked by Ang to develop the visual look for the film. At the beginning, the project was not about the opening title sequence; Ang wanted to create a unique look for the film. He wanted me to develop a new visual language incorporating multiple cameras to tell a story. In film, it’s difficult to show multiple events simultaneously on one screen. Ang wanted to develop a concept that incorporated how we normally read comic strips. He wanted to present the film in one giant comic page. I was asked to do R & D on a technique to choreograph multiple image panels on screen. As it developed, my involvement on the film expanded to design the opening sequence.

ATS: What kind of collaboration was involved in creating the sequence?

GY: Ang was very busy shooting the principle photography with Fred Elmes, the DP, at the Universal Studios Lot. It was a very intense working schedule for him and his production crews. I started to develop the storyboard for the opening. It was not that easy. In the opening, he wanted to create a backstory that explains David Banner’s experiments in extracting DNA from other species, which turns him into the Hulk. A week after I presented the storyboard, the production manager called and said the producer wanted to start shooting the opening in San Francisco at the ILM stage in 2 days. I sent out a shot list, they prepped the shoot in a day and we started shooting the next day. I ended up spending 5 days shooting in San Francisco. All the major set ups were shot up in the bay area and we also did 2 days of pick up shots for all of Banner’s journals at our own studio. We started editing the offline in L.A. while Ang was still working at ILM. We sent quicktimes back and forth until we locked the picture. That was a 6 minute long sequence. The studio wanted to cut it to 3 minutes. All the VFX and animation were done at yU+Co. We had a team of about 6-8 artists working on the project.

ATS: Can you breakdown the development of the sequence? Were there differences between this and other yU+Co. projects?

GY: First we went through an R&D stage. We had two concerns: content, and design, meaning the look and feel. The content was defined by Ang, but it was my responsibility to determine how to tell the story. The sequence is divided into two parts. In the first, I wanted to compare a microscopic world to the larger universe in outer space. To me there is always a universe within a universe- a world within a world. There is a visual similarity between the two. I decided to start with a drop of water which represents the beginning of life. From that, the journey begins. I did research on the look of a DNA double helix. For this project, the research was very important. The studio had hired a science consultant, John Underkoffler, who helped me to make sure all the visuals I created were scientifically correct. He was also involved in developing the story with me. The animation of a cell dividing is all based on real science reference. My sequence takes us traveling down to double helix DNA level and from there we find the Hulk graphic logo at the end of the journey.

The second part of the sequence takes us on a journey through David Banner’s experiments, which take place over time. His experiments involve extracting DNA from four species to harness certain characteristics from each. He uses the jellyfish for luminescence, the starfish for regeneration, sea cucumber for tough skin, and the lizard for its resistance to poison. One of the greatest challenges in the sequence was to communicate complex information without voiceover. We had to explain the whole scientific process visually. To help with this, we shot tabletop inserts of Banner’s diary which were then intercut with the lab footage. Ang later decided to also use the diary shots during the movie to help tell the story.

This was no different from other yU+Co. projects. We always start with research and defining the creative direction, from there we will go through a design process defining the look and feel. Once the design and offline are approved then we go into final production.

ATS: Were you responsible for the custom Marvel logo?

GY: Yes I was responsible for the custom Marvel logo. Ang wanted to replace all the comic pictures with The Hulk images.

ATS: Were you able to reference Danny Elfman’s theme music? If so, how did it influence the sequence?

GY: I must say Danny’s theme music was influenced by my temp music that I put together with my composer friend Walter Werzowa. The original music sketch was more fragmented. I used Walter’s music to edit my picture. Danny followed our picture and music to recompose his version of the theme music. He scored to my picture.

ATS: Was the type design always integrated? Were the scenes shot and edited with the title placement already in mind?

GY: Yes the scenes were shot with the placement of the titles in mind. I wanted to integrate the typography with the picture, reacting and interacting with the physical environment. I didn’t have time to plan everything before I went to San Francisco so I had to improvise a lot on set. A lot of design decisions were made in the post production stage because of that. The typography is a custom font designed to recall the movie’s comic book origins.

ATS: Do you have any interesting stories related to this sequence?

GY: Shooting on a tight schedule was pretty stressful. I got to the set for an 8am call and I had all the producers behind me watching over my shoulder waiting for me to give direction to my crew. I had to make quick decisions to tell my DP and AD what to do. I think I smoked at least 10 packs of cigarettes for those 5 days in San Francisco.

ATS: Is there someone relatively new whose work has taken you by surprise?

GY: There are so many young talents out there. Their work always surprises me. There is a Japanese saying: “The flow of the river is ceaseless and its water is never the same.” There are always fresh perspectives and new talents. Design never stops evolving.

ATS: What inspires you these days?

GY: My inspiration usually comes from everyday life observation. I think I’m like other artists. Everything around us affects our thinking: our life experience, our memories of the past, our dreams for our future, our imagination at any moment in time. I guess everything from music, literature, art, films, TV, internet, pop culture, dancing, architecture, my kids, my dogs… everything around me inspires me.

Next Week: Kyle Cooper of Prologue anatomizes “The Incredible Hulk.”

“Hulk is big…[so] I wanted to do something in a micro fashion to compare big and small.

I thought that maybe David Banner was trying to trace it back to the beginning [to try to find] that moment where cells begin to have feeling. The objects [he studies] are the beginning.”

Art of the Title: How have your life and your former creative experiences informed this work?

Howard Nourmand: This project in particular was the result of something I went through early in my life–my struggles in elementary school. Back then sitting still in the classroom was torture. It wasn’t that I was mischievous or that I didn’t care about my grades. NOT AT ALL. I cared a lot, but for the life of me I couldn’t stay focused on the curriculum and my mind would wander.

My parents (who believed that a good education was priceless) put me through numerous developmental classes. Somewhere along the way I was sent to see an educational therapist. On our first or second session she pulled out a set of Rorschach cards. I remember being struck and mesmerized by them. “There is no right or wrong answer,” I was told. It was a big departure from all the other examinations I had taken. In a way I was interfacing with abstract art for the first time.

The crude and dated psychological tool always stayed with me. Twenty-three years later when I was racking my brain and trying to dream something up for The Dog Problem, it came to me while I was tossing and turning in my sleep. I had been looping in my head and putting a lot of pressure on myself to figure it out. It took a lot of questions to get there, and then, it hit me and woke me up.

ATS: What kind of response to the title sequence have you received to-date?

HN: The response we received from this title sequence exceeded all my expectations. It landed my company (Grande Jeté) on Apple’s homepage and opportunities sprung up from all over the place. We got a lot of exposure and people contacted us from all over the world.

ATS: Have you ever taken a look at the music video for Gnarls Barkley’s track, “Crazy”? It’s a nice complimentary piece to your sequence. What is your take on that video?

HN: Yes, of course. It really is a spectacular piece. It was a humbling experience for me because their music video was released first, just as we were putting the finishing touches on ours. Keep in mind that even after we finished we had to wait for our film to get distribution. The Dog Problem only showed on a few screens and did not get the exposure I thought it was going to get while the Gnarls Barkley Song was a huge hit and won best video of the year.

It is surely not the first time that more than one person tapped into the same creative wavelength serendipitously. The good news is that they are entirely different approaches to the same Rorschach concept, and they have such different sensibilities. I think their video and our film sequence both succeeded in what they were trying to achieve.

ATS: What is the most important thing you learned before this sequence? What’s the most important thing you learned while creating this sequence?

HN: 1. One of my good friends Patrick Hoelck taught me a good habit: Reducing your outcome to a single sentence. (*I think he got it from Vincent Gallo). I wrote it out for this project. (It is a run-on but it still kept me fixed on the target):

“To visually stimulate and induce the viewers subconscious by using totally authentic psychiatric devices which take them on a psychological trip that explores the inner depth of the male psyche.”

2. Hard work always adds up to something (my old acting coach used to say that all the time).

ATS: Do you have a favorite element from the piece?

HN: My favorite element is the first inkblot I got to work as a graphic. It’s probably the most rudimentary of them all but something about it speaks to me. After the film was finished, I burned a screen and ran some limited edition silkscreen prints of that inkblot at Richard Duardo’s studio…it then became part of a group show at Otero Passart Gallery. We have continued to sell them and a portion of the proceeds of all the inkblots sold goes to The Learning Disabilities Association of California.

ATS: What was the process for working with the composer Mark Mothersbaugh (Devo)?

HN: In the beginning we used the Devo song because we didn’t have anything else and we all liked it. But as we got further along in the animation process I realized if we had to change the song it would be a MAJOR setback in what was already a very challenging project. Scott Caan (Director of The Dog Problem) kept saying, “Don’t worry, we’ll get it.” And whenever I would express my concern he would yell, “W-E A-R-E-G-O-N-N-A-G-E-T-I-T DOOOODE!” He challenged me a lot on this project…BUT at the same time he forced me to play above my head (Saul Bass once said that about Otto Preminger).

So one day Scott shows up toward the very end of a six-month stretch and says, “I got some bad and some good news: The bad is that we CANNOT use the Devo song…BUT the good is that I showed it to Mark and he is going to score something really similar to your titles.”

At first it was hard for me to tell if that was good news, but in the end it worked even better than I could have imagined because the new track felt more contemporary and fitting. To me it sounds like the version of “Gut Feeling” that would play in a psychedelic dream.

ATS: Who inspires you?

HN: Tony Robbins…you think that’s a joke…seriously.
Here are some others: Elia Kazan, Herb Lubalin, Charles & Ray Eames, Busby Berkeley, Saul Bass, Pablo Ferro, Daniel Bernoulli (1700-1782), Gustave Eiffel, Guy Bourdin, William Eggleston, David Hamilton, Dawn Tarnofsky Ostroff.

ATS: Is there someone relatively new whose work excites you?

HN: I saw an installation (Mother + Father) at Sundance this year by Candice Breitz that was pretty fantastic. Todd Cole has always been one of my favorite artists. Darren Romanelli, who I would define as the modern day Nudie Cohn (Elvis Prestley’s costume designer).

ATS: Parting thoughts?

HN: There were many many people who had their hands on this other than me. But there is one person who was literally by my side for the entire duration of this creative journey. Her name is Eileen Bertumen. Simply put, I never could have pulled it off without her.

Also, look out for Scott Caan Photographs Vol.1.
This art book was a collaboration between Scott Caan, Brett Ratner, and myself. It is being released this May 2009.

Art of the Title: Tell us a little bit about how you were approached to do this sequence; what were some of the early conversations?

Jamie Caliri: I first met with the writers and producers of the show. They had a pretty clear idea of what they wanted. Dave Finkle had sketched out a loose story board that showed the camera moving through a series of paper pop-up environments. Each environment represented a different Tara personality. Over the course of sending story boards back and forth, we decided to add actual characters into the pop-ups. We would keep her face hidden until the end.

ATS: How much of a character sketch did you have for each of Tara’s alters?

JC: They showed me the first few episodes, this helped a lot.

ATS: It seems like the sequence combines real-time action as well as stop-motion action? Is this the case?

JC: The piece is stop motion from start to finish. Some shots had minimal animation and others more. We attempted to build as many actual working pop-ups as possible

ATS: How did you work with the musical element? (Did you have it beforehand?)

JC: The music came in about half way through. We started cutting and shifting things a bit, but not much. It all just worked out. I did shift the music at one point to land a big boom sound over the falling foot. I thought this was Tim’s intention. It turned out to be a happy accident.

ATS: What equipment did you use?

JC: We shot with both the Canon 40D and the Nikon D300. We used Dragon Stop Motion to capture our 3K files. We did a bit of multi pass and multi exposure shooting. We composited in After Effects.

ATS: What is the most important thing you learned while creating this sequence?

JC: That building pop-up books is an art and a science. I understand why they call those folks paper engineers.

ATS: What recent work has taken you by surprise?

JC: I loved Raf Wathion’s Electrabel spot with all of the tea lights – amazing!

Art of the Title: Please tell us about your process of working with Tarsem; did you understand the magnitude of the film, and to that end, how did the nature of the title sequence [being independent from the film itself...as well as a front loaded coda] influence the evolution of your design?

Stefan G. Bucher: Tarsem is a genius, and The Fall is a masterpiece. That much was clear from the moment I saw the first photos Stephen Berkman had taken on set, and particularly after Tarsem showed me a rough cut. Even in that format it was epic.

Tarsem initially called me in to design a book of photography from the movie (shot by Stephen Berkman, Steven Colover, Ged Clarke and Tarsem) , which was printed in a very limited edition and sent out as a promotion. In the course of that project I designed a logo for THE FALL that was intended solely for the book. But of course, I secretly had my eye on the titles, and was very excited when Tarsem decided to use the logo for the film and the collateral materials.

This is also how I got involved on the typography for the rest of the titles and end credits. Tarsem had done some rough versions of the type for the opening credits and showed it to me. Less than perfect type is personally upsetting to me, and I felt that the typography for the Fall should be as beautifully considered as the film itself, so I basically pleaded that he let me do the job. Luckily, if there’s anybody who understands that sort of urgent artistic need, it’s Tarsem.

His brief to me was to make the titles beautiful, elegant, and as close to invisible as possible. Which meshes with my own aesthetic for this type of situation. It’s always my goal to make the typography feel so organic that you don’t even notice it as its own, separate element.

Pablo Ferro’s titles were on my mind, and definitely influenced the choice of font. His style of handwriting would’ve been the wrong tone here, but he’s one of the few people who use very light lettering, and that’s what I thought would fit The Fall.

We went with Univers Light Condensed. It’s just about as simple as you can get, and even though it’s a modern font it soaks up Tarsem’s take on Deco and Art Nouveau. It feels much more period appropriate to my eye than actual fonts from that time, which would come off as cliché. The same goes for the title itself, which is a heavily modified version of Univers. As for the swooshes, they were inspired by the Indian’s sword, but I think it’s obvious that I’m also a great admirer of Margo Chase and Marian Bantjes, whose swirly magnificence is always floating around in my head.

Tarsem was the one who edited the whole opening sequence, and there’s not a frame out of place. It’s a gorgeous sequence that was perfect — and also entirely sacrosanct. When I started working out the timing with my colleague John R. Waters of Atomic Zoo, who was in charge of the animation, we basically worked backwards. Legally, each credit has to be on screen for the exact same amount of time. After we determined what images should hold title cards, we had to use the shortest of those edits as our master length. From there it was a question of testing fade durations to make the appearance of short titles feel natural on long shots. It was a puzzle.

We also decided to put some of the type into perspective, letting it nestle under the bridge, in particular. We didn’t do it consistently, or as a huge, epic effect as David Fincher had done for Panic Room, but only in the one or two instances where a static title over the stately pans would’ve been distracting. We always saw the titles as belonging inside the space of the film.
When the pans occurred over open vistas, the type could conceivably float in that space, but the sharp lines of the bridge made it necessary to lock the type to the camera motion and to the perspective of the bridge. I’m always happy when I hear that people didn’t even notice we did that.

ATS: What qualities of the film informed your decisions? Do you ever go outside the film or project or medium to draw inspiration? Any examples of that?

SGB: I do a lot of design work for fine artists (through the Los Angeles gallery L.A. Louver) and photographers. Tarsem’s images felt very much of that kind to me. I’m always inspired by the work itself, and it’s always my goal to structure the typography as an extension to the piece that feels inevitable. At that point, I go on instinct. This is what feels right to my eye.

ATS: Who are your heroes in type design? What recent work has impressed you?

SGB: Everyone loves Marian Bantjes, and I’m no exception. I also love the lettering of Doyald Young. As I mentioned, I love Pablo Ferro and Margo Chase. Mark Farrow is always fantastic. There are a lot of amazing young designers doing motion work and if I try to name any of them, the people I’ll fail to mention will make me look foolish. There’s just such an abundance of great work coming out right now. It’s a golden age for typography, particularly in motion graphics. So much of it is so beautiful and painterly.

ATS: Can you tell us a little bit about the first moment when you knew you wanted to work in graphic design?

SGB: I started as an illustrator. Which is to say I started drawing when I was little and then figured out how to get my work printed as I got older. It’s always been about control. With each project I get a tiny slice of the world that I can bend to my will, that’s under my complete control. I love that! I’ve always loved that. Graphic design entered the mix when I figured out that I could control the typographic AND the illustrative visuals.

ATS: What are you working on now, what are you pondering?

SGB: Right now I’m working on art catalogs for Enrique Martinez Celaya and Deborah Butterfield (through L.A. Louver) and on a new book of my own called “The Graphic Eye — Photographs by Graphic Designers,” which will be in stores this fall. But of course the Daily Monsters are my main focus. Now that the book of the first 100 Monsters is out I’m getting into longer animated sequences for the creatures. Some of their cousins are about to appear on the rebooted Electric Company on PBS starting with the series premiere on MLK Day.

ATS: What is the last good book you read?

SGB: I know it’s a few years old by now, but I loved “Pattern Recognition” by William Gibson.

Art of the Title strongly recommends viewing a slideshow of this Flickr pool a few days after experiencing the film.