CREATING THE END CREDIT SEQUENCE
Over the years, movie credit sequences have become increasingly significant as part of the overall look of a film. To give you some insight into the process of creating and developing a credit sequence, we speak to VooDooDog, creators of the animated end credit sequence for Nanny McPhee, who tell us how they approached this project.
David Z. Obadiah, Paul Donnellon, VooDooDog
We became involved in this project towards the end of the editing process. We had originally come up with an animated sequence for the beginning of the film, but it was decided that the sequence would work better at the end.
Our first step was to take a brief from the director, Kirk Jones, and write our treatment explaining how we would create this sequence. Within the treatment we described our vision for look and style of the piece.
Once our treatment was approved, we began to create the storyboard and start the initial designs for the characters. Working with the director, the storyboard was changed about 8 times until we were all happy.
Once the storyboard was approved, we began work on the animation. We created a simple animatic and then started the actual animation process. The idea we proposed for the title sequence involved simple animation of the characters which interacted with the text. A different scenario was created for each title, with each scenario having its own crafted design. As the animation continued, we experimented with different colours and textures to achieve the feel we were after.
As work progressed, the director would come in from time to time to make relevant changes. During the animation process a section of the sequence was given to Framestore, the post-production house, to shoot on to film in order for us to see how the colours looked. We were then able to make any necessary adjustments.
Once the finished sequence was approved by the director and the producers, the sequence was then rendered out into files which were given to Framestore for the digital intermediate which was then scanned back to film.
In total, this project took about 6 weeks with the team working very long hours and at weekends. At the busiest time, we had 12 people working on this project, including the animation director, producer, 2D animators, compositor, background designers and layout artists. We also had a small team of 3D artists to create the main title of Nanny McPhee at the beginning of the film.
VooDooDog has recently been nominated for an Emmy for 'Outstanding Title Design' for the sequence they created for the HBO/BBC Films title, The Life and Death of Peter Sellers.
To take a look at some of the animations used to create the end credit sequence and the sequence itself, just click through to the Nanny McPhee page below.
www.voodoodog.com
