"Why someone weak? Because a weak man knows the value of strength, the value of power... "
- Abraham Erskine
As James Montgomery Flagg’s iconic Uncle Sam orders viewers to join him on a final tour of American war propaganda, the line between two- and three-dimensional art is blurred. Painted images of smiling pin-up girls, parachutes, and fighter planes warp and shift, invigorated with a depth beyond their original form. Even ol’ Rosie the Riveter makes an appearance among the flags and artillery as the closing credits for Captain America: The First Avenger roll out.
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.
"We are Sex Bob-omb and we are here to make you think about death and get sad and stuff!" - Scott Pilgrim
The reductionist 8-bit rendering of the Universal logo is the amuse-bouche to Edgar Wright's Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World based on the graphic novel series by Bryan Lee O'Malley.
The manga/mumblecore modulation of the film first seethes here on pseudo strips of scratched celluloid scored to Beck's/Sex Bob-omb's artful cheetah-like strains of something akin to Black Flag ("Wasted") locking horns with Iggy Pop ("Search and Destroy").
The visual napalm, conjured by Shynola, is traced and painted upon rather than a result of exposure to light.
Director Edgar Wright, concept designer and head storyboard artist Oscar Wright, and main title designer Richard Kenworthy from Shynola discuss the creation of the opening sequence with us.
"Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic."
- Jim Jarmusch
Bringing fresh energy to motion comics -animating panels as vibrantly dead as any Romero classic- Daniel Kanemoto's fan-made title sequence for AMC's new series "The Walking Dead" gives new form and perspective to the work of an impressive string of creatives. The original comic was given life by writer Robert Kirkman and artist Tony Moore, and Charlie Adlard from issue #7. "The Walking Dead" debuts on All Hallows Eve with Frank Darabont as writer/director. The infinite regress found in the hunt of our ghoulish selves found in source material this good should allow for deeper exploration into the allure of the walking dead.
Happy Halloween.
The type isn't rising. We're sinking.
The seduction of Bassian lines generating in linear suffocation also gives structure to Jorge Calvo's opening title sequence for Rodrigo Cortés' "Buried" as the universality of death and Saul Bass wriggle anxiety from the vine. Bracketed pictorials offer more for us to trace while hastening toward interment.
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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.
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Featuring the second best use of classic Metallica (the first being Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky’s Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills) the title sequence to Zombieland does not back down. Flashes of jarring death slathered with slow speed splatter document a kinetic finality that does not force its humor. We see every black bauble of biohazardous blood upsurge and dot the landscape of a crippled Earth.
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