Motion Design

Credits for Independent Movie “Big Bad” for Eyevox Entertainment

How do you introduce the tone of a film, giving hints at its backstory, without giving too much away? That was the challenge we gladly accepted from our frequent collaborators at Eyevox Entertainment.

Solution

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Motion Design

“Big Bad” Opening Credits

The Solution

At the heart of the title-sequence project is the film Big Bad. Since we’re not fans of spoiler alerts, let’s just say that Big Bad tells the tale of a supernatural creature and the quest to prove its existence. Many ideas made their way around the table before we ultimately landed on this one: What if we depicted methods used by humans throughout time to record the paranormal – cave paintings, the Renaissance, Daguerreotypes, newsprint, VHS all the way up to modern-day video-sharing – and then strategically weave the film’s credit titles throughout vignettes of those depictions? Voila, an opening credit sequence was born.

Research

VHS? Now that’s a format we remember. However since cave paintings were a little before our time, we began our process by researching historical methods used to tell stories. We scoured the internet, movies, book covers, TV episodes…no stone was left unturned (get it, cavemen, stones…#seewhatwedidthere?) until we felt we had a wealth of reference imagery at our fingertips.

Cave Painting Segment

This section required only simplistic drawings, however since it would be the first title viewers saw, it needed to be convincing. We drew the sequence by hand and then added noise and texture using Photoshop brushes.

With some nifty 3D texture work, we created a realistic wall painting. Once we took it into After Effects, added lighting, fire, smoke and depth-of-field, our end product was a solid start to the title sequence.

Hieroglyphics Segment

Since all recorded hieroglyphics of alien encounters have been mysteriously eradicated (we’re looking at you History Channel), we tapped into our inner paranormal curiosities and drew our own.

DaVinci Page Segment

Following the more crude depictions of paranormal activity, we segued into what we dubbed the ‘da Vinci Page’ and got the chance to dust off our dormant figure-drawing skills. We then combined those figures with new drawings in the same style to invent a series of bizarre animals.

Newspaper Microfilm Segment

Next we created the newspaper sequence, which involved mocking up an historic copy of the local rag for the fictitious town in the film. We even aged it a bit and mimicked a microfilm viewer in After Effects.

That’s a Wrap

In the end, we were able to create a title sequence that creatively gives due credit to the film’s creators while also giving a nod to our planet’s paranormal visitors and those who have encountered them (we know you’re out there…)

Here’s a quick behind the screen video we created to sum up the work that went into the madness.