Model kits and kilts.

ISO Design’s opening title sequence to “A History of Scotland” offers a gathering sense of self and of a scaled Scotland. Using a tilt-shift effect that simulates miniature scale model photography where a shallow depth of field is created by blurring areas of the composition either optically or in post, the title technique nicely captures the spirit of the pioneering Picts.

Art of the Title: Tell us a little bit about ISO Design.

Damien Smith: 10 years young Glasgow-based digital design studio. Started out concentrating on personal motion graphics projects for commissioners like OneDotZero and moved into TV in the late 90’s working with the BBC, MTV and Channel 4 in the UK.

We still do a lot of broadcast graphics and have expanded the studio to work on large scale interactive installations for clients like Mercedes Benz and multiplatform projects like the new Sony XMB and the BBC iPlayer.

ATS: How did you become involved with the project?

DS: We’ve worked closely with the BBC team responsible for History of Scotland over many years. This was the largest production ever undertaken by the BBC in this country and we worked closely on early concepts for reconstructions, in programme graphics and the titles.

ATS: Take us through the design process, how did you develop the concept for the piece?

DS: The design brief was simple – ” illustrate over 1000 years of Scottish history in a contemporary style”.

After early discussions with the producer and director, we kept coming back to one core idea . . Scotland’s history and it’s people is defined by it’s landscape; from the natural barrier the Highlands form to the rugged west coast and islands down through the central lowlands, this unique land form defined our history.

As with most projects three or four ideas were kicked around with the strongest developed into a storyboard. We all liked the idea of historical dates and type tagged or pinned into the landscape then blowing away in the wind, referencing the elemental nature of Scotland and the passing of time. We then gathered specially shot helicopter footage and added shallow focal planes into shot, that helped to build in a sense of scale and also caused attention to focus in on the type elements.

ATS: Describe the development process of the sequence.

DS: After the BBC approved the treatment we created an animatic showing text blowing away over a moving aerial shot with a shift tilt effect on the background footage. This very quickly showed we could not manually key frame the type elements, as there were far to many characters and this also lacked a random natural feel. We then started scripting in After Effects to animate the type from a resting position to a new position off screen. We also split type blocks into words or letters and the scripts randomised the position and rotation parameters as the type as it left screen. The whole thing gave much more of a natural organic feel. Travelling mattes for were then created for all the helicopter shots and the shift tilt effects produced using Mocha, and tracking moving shots in SynthEyes.

ATS: What was the most difficult aspect of this piece?

DS: Trying to squeeze it out of a BBC budget!

ATS: What recent work has taken you by surprise?

DS: The Radiohead graduation film of Glasgow School of Art student James Houston – Big Ideas (don’t get any). Pleased to say James regularly works out of our studio as a freelance director!

ATS: So what’s next for you?

DS: We have recently launched a creative social media platform in partnership with Channel 4, we are completing the titles for Peter Mullans new film NEDS and we are consulting on interactive installations for a new Zaha Hadid Museum.

For our first post in 2010 we revisit the “How We Built Britain” titles with an interview with their creator Gareth Edwards. This was requested by some readers, facilitated by others and now available to all and feels like the perfect way to begin this new decade. Edwards, a truly multi-talented designer/visual effects artist/director has worked for the BBC on numerous productions including “Seven Wonders of the Industrial World” and “Attila the Hun,” this year completes his first feature film, “Monsters.”

A tangle of utility in both architecture and typography offers a fascinatingly structured title sequence for the BBC’s “How We Built Britain” that bespeaks an acquisitive England. The artificial monuments of type seem proportionally sound, the final title card an achievement of engineering.

Art of the Title: Tell us a little bit about where you are with your career.

Gareth Edwards: I kind of got into graphic design by accident. I always grew up wanting to be a filmmaker. But when I went to film school (about 15 years ago) it was very clear that computers were going to be the future of filmmaking. So I bought one, learned the software, and got completely sidetracked in a career doing visual effects, title sequences etc. Over the last few years I was able to use this skill to bribe companies like the BBC into letting me direct TV shows, by promising to add lots more production value through creating my own digital effects. I’m currently finishing the post-production on my first feature film called ‘Monsters,’ a sci-fi road movie set in Central America made for Vertigo Films in the UK.

ATS: How did you become involved with How We Built Britain?

GE: I was waiting to begin my next directing project and had a bit of a work gap. I knew the people in BBC Arts through my time doing visual effects with them. The producer called me about the show and it had been a while since I had created a title sequence, so I felt like it could be fun.

ATS: Take us through the design process, how did you develop the concept for the piece?

GE: I remember going to a meeting with the various people at the BBC and pitched about eight different ideas (all of which I quite liked). I was trying to find a simple visual metaphor for their show. By the end, I could tell they didn’t like any of them and I thought ‘well, that’s that then, I guess I won’t be doing this’. Then as the meeting was nearly over and I had a better handle on what they wanted I said ‘Well, we could just do the obvious thing.’ ‘What’s that?’… ‘We could just do the title ‘How We Built Britain’ … as buildings… across Britain,’ I was a bit embarrassed as I said it as it felt a bit clichéd, but they loved it!

ATS: Describe the development process of the sequence.

GE: Once we had agreed on the concept, everything else fell into place very easily. None of the footage was specifically shot for the titles, so I spent a day sitting through all their helicopter footage that they had filmed for the series, looking for shots where I might be able to add giant letters. I then did a very rough edit and tracked the footage adding a simple ‘Arial’ font as an example of where each letter would go. They really liked what they saw and didn’t want me to change anything, including the font! (Although I have nothing against Arial either).

ATS: What equipment (hardware/software) did you use?

GE: I created the 3D letters in 3ds Max. My 3D skills back then were pretty average, so I just modeled and textured as best I could. I used Photoshop for textures (taken from other buildings found in the rushes). Everything was comped in After Effects, which didn’t require much work other than grading, rotoscoping, etc. The 3D was tracked using Boujou (just the version where you push a button, as I’m no expert tracker either).

ATS: What was the most difficult aspect of this piece?

GE: I guess the tracking was hardest. Some of the elements do slide around in some of the shots and I had to go in by hand and squash and stretch elements to make it less noticeable. What’s funny is that I think when people know something can’t be real, they are much better at spotting it. But there is a shot in there where I replaced and added an entire mountain range (the first car POV of the ‘I’) to help it cut with the following shot. The tracking on that isn’t great either, but because you assume it’s real, nobody ever notices.

ATS: What did you learn on this design?

GE: That it’s good to be open minded and listen to your producers (sometimes). They know their project much better than you ever will. I think if I had gone with any of my original designs, I might have created something that I would have liked, but would not have been as good for the show. I also learned that some people care more a lot more about fonts than me!

ATS: What recent work has taken you by surprise?

GE: I haven’t really been following motion graphics as much as I used to. I can’t help feeling that what we went through a few years back with the birth of digital animation/graphic design, was a bit like in the sixties with the birth of rock n’ roll. There was suddenly this new frontier that everyone dived into and came up with lots of really cool work. I think it’s such a fast moving, incestuous industry, that it is very hard to create anything timeless. As a result, I don’t really find myself sitting and watching any of my old favourite graphic design DVDs, but I’m always sitting and watching my old favourite films, which I think says a lot – that a great story will stay with you much longer than a great design. But on very rare occasions something comes along that manages to combine both, and it is those pieces of work that will outlive us all.

ATS: So what’s next for you?

GE: I’m just finishing the post production on my first film ‘Monsters,’ which I need to get much better at explaining in just one sentence. It’s kind of a monster movie, but set years after most monster movies end, when people aren’t running and screaming anymore, but life just goes on as normal with these ‘things’ in part of the world. We shot it all very guerrilla style in Central America. Apart from our two main characters, everyone else in it are real people just going about their real lives, with all the sci-fi elements being added in digitally afterwards. As a result I think we’ve created a very believable world with some really subtle performances. I can’t wait for it to be finished and start showing people… and not an Arial font in sight! Actually, maybe a few on some road signs here and there, but just for realism!

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.

“For this opening title sequence, we decided to use a literal element from the show to reflect one of its strong underlying themes…things aren’t always the way they seem and rarely go as planned. The series, Météo+, is a French, comedic drama about a staff of eccentric characters operating an independent weather network.

And stylistically, we wanted to keep the feel pretty organic and not use a lot of effecting or compositing. The graphic device of the floating forecasts seemed to be a great subtle touch – both clean and slick at the same time.”

“We did the sequence together with art director Marina Grandi and project manager Monica Masciocchi from FBF (Frame by Frame Italy).

It took about 6 weeks to finish. The lead artist, Alexandras Polevojus, who also did the Boris 2 sequence, is one of the pioneers of 3D compositing in the Baltic States and one of a handful of pioneers of motion graphics after the Soviet Union collapse.”

“Boris was a very popular TV series in Italy after its first season. When the producers decided to make a second season, Piero, a project manager from Fox Channels Italy and Juan Pablo, the art director, invited CREATOR to test how we would imagine the actors underwater. The series takes place in a film studio, and the director always asks for advice from his best friend BORIS the fish. Fox liked what they saw and we got the job. It was impossible to schedule a shoot with all the actors together so they were shot against green screen. Keying the actors took some time. After we got the footage it took about 6 weeks to reach the final result. We just won the silver at Promax|BDA in New York.”

“An intuitive editorial approach and the fantastic manipulation of reality led the way to a montage that hints at the disturbing truth about the people of Durham County.”

“This title sequence, to a BBC 1 prime time drama based in a law firm and centred around it’s main character Fish, played by Paul McCann, was specially shot 16mm and uses film of ink spiralling into water which was then composited against animating typography of the cast to create a simple, sophisticated and classic filmic sequence.”

It was made using pure undiluted ink in water. The movement comes from simply stirring the water in a cylindrical tank. It was shot on a fixed 16mm Bolex camera and telecined to digital format for grading and editing. The frame rate was a mixture – between 25 and 60 frames a second. It’s the luck of the draw which way the ink is going to go and how it spreads, but that’s the beauty. Simple and no need for fluid fx!

“A group of old friends whose lives are thrown into chaos when one of their group commits suicide.

Despite it’s 2D appearance the sequence was animated in Maya not only to give the animator greater control of the characters and environment, but also to add fluidity and personality to the spheres. As the turn around time for the sequence was just a little longer than it takes to make a cup of tea, an added benefit of animating in Maya was that we could quickly render in HD.”

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!