The Killing: Artist Statement
Whenever I watch any television show, I have an immense appreciation for its title sequence and opening credits. The amount of style, design, creativity, and effort that are put into these intros is incredible. Title sequences are imperative to the image and identity of a show -- they are the television equivalent of the illustration cover on a novel. Title sequences set the tone and captivate the audience into the fictional world that is being presented. They give the first impressions to the audience thus an extreme amount of thought and planning must be contributed to the process of its creation.
In the planning stages of this project, I decided I wanted to create a title sequence for a crime show, as I love to watch true crime in my free time. To brainstorm style ideas, I began to gather inspiration from various shows such as True Detective, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Sherlock, and Dexter. From these inspirations, I chose to have a “grungy” look to my title sequence in order to match the tone of mysteriousness that follow detective work. Originally, I had planned to make a minute and forty second long sequence, however, because of the deadline, I had cut it down to a minute. Fortunately, it had ended up working out in the end. For this project I have used Photoshop and After Effects. I would edit files in Photoshop to achieve my desired style (coloring, contrast, saturation) and then bring them into After Effects. I made a total of 20 different compositions in after effects but only used 11 in the final production – each of which are only about 3-6 seconds long. My main idea was to create a lot of double exposure and overlapping designs, which I have done to most, if not all, compositions. I used a variety of techniques such as easy ease, blending modes, and camera tools in my project.
During the process of this project, I had run into various complications including audio syncing. Because I was making separate compositions for each scene in the sequence, consequently, I had to separate the audio as well. However, the visuals and audio did not sync with each other. As a result, I had to create the scenes without the audio and instead, add it in the end with the final production. I also spent a lot of time looking and downloading specific footage that would cohere to the tone and style of my title sequence. If I had chance to redo this project, I would explore more with the camera tool as well as 3D to create more effective visuals that play with the illusion of space between objects. To conclude, I really enjoyed creating this project as whole and exploring the process creating a title sequence in a way that would spark excitement, intrigue, and anticipation in the audience.