"Not every conspiracy is a theory."

An unseen agent trails the truth, circling mysteries and raising questions with every paranoid swipe of the highlighter. Newspapers, bar codes, maps, documents, and photos – otherwise mundane minutiae is checked and rechecked for evidence, a pattern of some kind, or perhaps nothing at all. Every whir and click of the microfilm reader widens the web, as the line between conspiracy theorist and intelligence analyst is blurred in Imaginary Forces’ title sequence for AMC’s Rubicon.

"If you're wondering how he eats and breathes
and other science facts (la la la),
Then repeat to yourself, 'It's just a show,
I should really just relax
For Mystery Science Theater 3000!'"

Drawing on a fascination with home-made props and blending imagery from sources as diverse as Frank Zappa, the Mickey Mouse Club, and 2001: A Space Odyssey, Joel Hodgson and his team created a title sequence with its roots in UHF television broadcasting. Tom Servo, Crow, and the rest of the gang show their seams unabashedly, embracing the spirit of the movies so endearingly skewered aboard the Satellite of Love.

Joel Robinson’s space-borne imprisonment by distant jailers is a trial of the will, every film a battle. Each successive gauntlet of schlock that Joel (and the viewer) survives drives these tormentors further and further into manic desperation. How bad will they get? How bad can they get?! Joel and his impish robot companions may be prisoners to cinematic dreck and straight-to-video garbage, but no matter how terrible the film, they joyfully embrace it. The journey to Mystery Science Theater 3000 reminds viewers of the true meaning of “so bad it’s good.”

"Advertising is based on one thing: Happiness." - Don Draper

A shadowed figure enters his office, sets down his briefcase, and the room collapses around him. As he tumbles through a chasm of diamond rings, happy families, and women in pantyhose, the glossy veneer of advertising gives way, revealing the rough humanity of a man lost. RJD2’s jazzy “A Beautiful Mine” conducts the viewer through the parallel worlds of the philandering, chain-smoking Madison Avenue boys' club and the idyllic nuclear family, introducing us to some of the themes underpinning the Emmy award-winning show, Mad Men.

Art of the Title spoke with Cara McKenney, Mark Gardner and Steve Fuller about the brainstorms and battles that went into this refined and cryptic opening title sequence, produced by Imaginary Forces.

"I think it's time we blow this scene. Get everybody and the stuff together. OK. 3 2 1. Let's jam!"

Erratic flashes blast the black and white canvas, synchronized in harmony with the pulsating sound of horns and drums to reveal the title: Cowboy Bebop. Composer Yoko Kono's opening theme, "Tank!," begins its eclectic mixture of bebop jazz, an incandescent barrage of instruments each punctuating the visuals to stylized effect.

The jazz influence, not only prevalent in the soundtrack, also carries through to the execution of the visuals; the colors and camera movement strengthen the exuberance of the music's hip, free, and expressive spirit. The palette of pink, blue, yellow, green serves as a backdrop to the black silhouettes of characters, which are repeatedly paired with free-form animated text and the Cowboy Bebop title. Squares and rectangles dominate the screen, in varying graphic layouts–splitting the composition some times, and at other times separating frames to provide spacing for the credits. Incorporated throughout, a series of action shots congruous to the cadence of the music provide a glimpse at some of the show's symbolism: martial arts fighting, billows of cigarette smoke, frantic running, various spaceships interjecting, guns firing.

The art direction for the title sequence of Cowboy Bebop is reminiscent of Sejun Suzuki's Tokyo Drifter (a 1966 film made during the Japanese New Wave or Noberu Bagu) and also from the pop art movement. The primordial element, however, is the bebop jazz influence (hence the term's inclusion in the show's title and the labeling of the show's episodes as "sessions"). The title credits even act as a manifesto supported by the meandering text in some shots: "They must create new dreams and films by breaking traditional styles. They are sick and tired of conventional fixed style jazz. ...the work, which becomes a new genre itself, will be called COWBOY BEBOP, will play without fear of risky things." The strong images coupled with the aural landscape of trumpets, saxophones, trombones, drums, and double-bass create a marvelous introduction to one of Anime's seminal works.

WRITER: Shaun Mir
LAST UPDATE: August 3, 2011
© Art of the Title, 2011

The 2011 Emmy nominations for "Outstanding Main Title Design" have just been announced and some familiar faces (and studios) are back with more outstanding work.

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.

"Winter is coming." —Lord Eddard Stark

A fiery astrolabe orbits high above a world not our own; its massive Cardanic structure sinuously coursing around a burning center, vividly recounting an unfamiliar history through a series of heraldic tableaus emblazoned upon it. An intricate map is brought into focus, as if viewed through some colossal looking glass by an unseen custodian. Cities and towns rise from the terrain, their mechanical growth driven by the gears of politics and the cogs of war.

From the spires of King's Landing and the godswood of Winterfell, to the frozen heights of The Wall and windy plains across the Narrow Sea, Elastic's thunderous cartographic flight through the Seven Kingdoms offers the uninitiated a sweeping education in all things Game of Thrones.