Film titles/credits

YouTube - Casino Royale Title Sequence




The Casino Royale title sequence was done by UK based Framestore.  http://www.framestore-cfc.com/  Theire website displays other work they have done including the polar bears in Golden Compass and the famous Guiness advert.
 

With the help of Daniel Kleinman, the director, they produced this animated intro to the James Bond film. They used card motifs such as suits, Kings and Queens, to suggest the theme of the film and teamed this with imagery like cross hairs and blood to signify the violent nature of the film. Crosshairs turn into roulette wheels, Hearts and Diamonds appear as blood as they pour out of decorative vessels. Kleinman says "The titles have been a defining element of the Bond films for decades, and a defining feature of the titles has been the girls. Given the spirit of this new film, that simply no longer felt appropriate."
I like the fact that this is different to the other bond titles and I think it demonstrates how duplicating quite simple shapes and symbols can make a visually stunning animation.


Another great sequence is the credits from 300.  The company that did these  is Yu  +  Co  who said the look of the credits was intended to pay homage to the graphic novel at the end of the movie.

The only colours used are red black and yellow. The figures are silhouettes but are not completely static - a horses tail might move or a soldiers cape. The imagery is on layers  which are zoomede in and out, scaled up and down. and this seemingly simple movements actually give a dynamic end product. Splatters of blood go across the frame and the flat shapes in the background morph into objects. The type used is Frank Millers own artistic alphabet which helps to refer to the novel.
Yu + Co artists have edited the movie down and created what Yu calls "an echo of the whole story." In explaining the blood  Yu says "We wanted the blood to be like a volcano. Theres a lot of 2D blood in the movie and we ran with it as a unifying motif for the end crawl." On their website http://www.yuco.com/ their splash page is amazing in itself - a dandelion of animated seeds looks like its blowing in the wind while every so often type gets blown out of it. They also do the title sequence for desperate housewives which adopts a montage effect of images, taking you through the history of female anguish in different period art styles.