Today we’re happy to present our first title sequence we created for a film company based out of Pelahatchie, MS. Curtis Everitt, founder of Saint Studios Films LLC, has been creating films since 2008 here in Mississippi. Back in August of 2015, we reached out to him to see if he wanted to hire our talents to create an opening title sequence for any of his new upcoming film projects. He obliged.
The new film that Chris was working on was a secret agent film and it was titled The Fox, The Owl and The Snake. His vision was recapturing the awesome title sequence done for Tim Burton’s 1989 film classic Batman. The concept consists of the camera flowing through the Batman logo throughout with the credits being over-layed on top, only for the logo to be revealed at the end. Chris wanted this while doing all three of the animal heads from the title.
We began by created the animal heads first by designing them in Adobe Illustrator CC. Knowing that we were going to use VideoCopilot’s Element 3D V.2 for our 3D work, we went into the design process with broader strokes as oppose to small detailing work. We also used a basic coloring system from white to black to show the different type of layers that will be used later in the model. For you to see how we created the piece in its entirety, we have displayed for you the Fox.
Screen capture of The Fox from Illustrator file for The Fox, The Owl, and The Snake Title Sequence.
Once our designs were approved, we hopped into Adobe After Effects CC. We imported the Illustrator file while retaining the layers and then executed the Auto-Trace option to create a solid with a mask of the layer. These were later used as Custom Layer settings for Element 3D. Here’s where the fun began. While each layer was assigned in E3D, we began constructing the animal face in 3D space. We controlled the stroke, beveling, texture, and coloring of the entire piece. We also added a plane surface for the logo to sit on which also reflected the overall color of the logo; this case being orange. (The Owl was light green and the Snake was purple).
Video Copilot’s Element 3D Version 2 in Adobe After Effects CC 2015.
Next came the creating of the 3D camera and animating the movement. Chris was specific in what length each logo should have so we had a great roadmap of how long our shots should have been executed. Once we were satisfied with each camera movement, we added the nice touches of depth of field, fog and then color correcting. For more of a cinematic touch, we utilized the great post-production software sold by Red Giant Software, Magic Bullet Looks. Here we implemented nice adjustments on top of our color correcting that involved diffuse settings, Hue/Saturation/Levels, curves, and some vignetting. Overall we were very impressed on how the final “look” of the piece turned out and so was Chris.
Red Giant’s Magic Bullet Looks inside of Adobe After Effects CC 2015.
We performed this task for the remaining two animal characters and each presented their own challenges. The whole project was a great opportunity to once again work utilizing both Adobe products of Illustrator and After Effects. The concept of creating vector objects in Illustrator and then using them to create a 3D object with E3D is a gem to know how to execute. This particular project lasted over three months of conversing back and forth and completing revision requests.
Currently Curtis’ film is still under post-production and there were some talks of it becoming a web-series with a later DVD release. Regardless we were happy to help another filmmaker achieve their vision for their project. We’re hoping that our work for Chris’ film will help other potential filmmakers come to us to create their own title sequence. Can’t wait to see what 2016 will bring!
***The video is for display purposes only and is not the final product delivered to the client***
