DESIGN AT VIACOM
Jenny Lee and Gareth Smith are a married couple that work together on film titles. The duo has collaborated on the opens for movies like THE GUILT TRIP, THAT AWKWARD MOMENT, and JUNO. They worked with the director Jason Reitman on several projects, including the title sequence for Paramount’s UP IN THE AIR, featured at Design at Viacom
We spoke with Lee and Smith about working with Reitman, their inspiration for the UP IN THE AIR titles, and their methods for working as a team.
Can you explain what the goal of a title sequence is?
Gareth Smith: “Every project is unique with title design. We separate titles into different categories. There are ones that help directors open the movie, possibly helping to establish the story or the character or the location a bit…There’s storytelling title sequences. There are ones that establish tone or the feel of the film. We’ve been approached a number of times to help introduce a character in a movie—maybe the filmmaker’s having trouble establishing who the main character of the film is and you can actually use the title sequence to do that.”
“[There’s a] category of title sequences that typically appear at the end of the film… it’s like a recap title sequence. It’s sort of retelling the story.”
Tell us about your experience working on the title sequence for UP IN THE AIR.
“With [director] Jason Reitman in particular, he really does think about title sequences… Usually we’re brought in late in post-production and we might have a month or two to do a title sequence. Jason likes to actually give us the script, so we get to read it and process it before he actually shoots the movie. With UP IN THE AIR that’s certainly something that he did... I truly believe that the best creativity, the best ideas, the best concepts come with time…UP IN THE AIR was something like that where we really needed to sit with it a little bit to feel what it was going to be.”
What was your inspiration for this title sequence?
Gareth Smith: “We had a screenplay about a character Ryan who spent a lot of his professional life flying across the country. He’s a character who’s detached from other people, so his happy place is sitting in business class or first class on American Airlines. Essentially, his view in that situation is looking down at the world from 36,000 feet. It’s a very abstract, distant view of the world. His journey in the movie is starting with that distant view of relationships, and, throughout the film, he gets closer and closer and reaches out and takes that step to possibly make a connection. That quality led us immediately to think about what’s he’s seeing during his travel across the country, and a lot of that is that abstracted view of America.”
Jenny Lee: “It was important for us to not have aerial photography that showed landmarks because the higher up you are, the more abstract the topography gets. We were inspired by Andy Goldsworthy. There’s a really great documentary about his work called RIVERS AND TIDES. And there’s a moment in that film where he’s looking outside a window and looking down at the rivers and coming up with ideas for how those lines and curves will inspire his artwork. We just thought that was a really striking visual concept that we could also work with. Another artist that we were looking at was Ed Ruscha, in particular his parking lot photography series. Again, they’re taken from a pretty high angle, so they look more abstract.”
Gareth Smith: “This one was a little unusual for us because Jenny and I are married, and I think this happened around our wedding. We did a lot of aerial research… and put together an inspiration gallery. We sent some of the images we’re talking about—Ed Ruscha, other aerial photography—and then we went off on our honeymoon. We picked it up when we got back. What we discovered when we got back was that the production had hired a jet to fly around the country and shoot aerial footage.”
“We wanted to create a very simple, abstract visual poem that represents the main character’s viewpoint.”
Jenny Lee: “And also to make it fun. When you’re working on a title sequence, you’re listening to the song over and over again; it’s looping in your head for weeks and you’re the one watching the sequence over and over again. So whenever we work on a sequence, we try to make something that we also really like to watch.”
Can you describe the process of putting this sequence together?
Gareth Smith: “There is a division of labor between us. I tend to be more the concept, typography, animation guy. And Jenny is an incredible editor.”
Jenny Lee: “With title sequences, you usually start with the names of the actors and then you go into the section of department heads and then producers and then, at the end, directors.”
Gareth Smith: “And this is consistent— every movie always has the same order and generally has the same number of title cards.
“We knew what the style was going to be, that we were essentially going to be doing split screens or overlapping several shots on top of each other. When Jenny was editing, it wasn’t just putting shots next to each other in a simple filmic sense. She would actually find images that connect with one another.”
Jenny Lee: “I tried to create a story with the footage. So, in the beginning, it starts with clouds as sort of our introduction. And then it goes into more of the fun, abstract landscapes. And then, we start getting lower and lower, until, finally, when you get to director, the plane has landed. So there is some kind of structure of how high we are, where we are and the type of places that you see.”
“Other times, I was also just inspired by the character. For instance, for Vera Farmiga’s card, her character is very warm, she’s earthy and friendly and she has this kind of golden light to her. So the shot that appears on her card, there’s a beautiful sunlight that hits over the water.”
Gareth Smith: “It’s like a sunset bouncing off the ocean.”
As you mentioned, the two of you are married. How did you start collaborating together on these opens?
Gareth Smith: “It evolved pretty naturally. Our first project together with title design was actually Jason Reitman’s first film THANK YOU FOR SMOKING. That was very similar process-wise to this one. In that case, we were dealing with vintage cigarette package designs…Jenny started it; she had the music and the title cards. And Jenny’s also an illustrator, so she did first pass sketches of each of the title cards. In that film what was kind of cool was each title card could really specifically refer to individual characters. So she did that, and passed the edit to me… I essentially designed it and animated it—put it all together and made it flow.”
Jenny Lee: “But each title sequence is different. What we try to do is not really have a Smith and Lee style. We try to go behind whatever the film is. So if the film calls for something more visual effects-heavy, then we’ll do that. Or if the film is more of a tone piece, then we’ll do that. For UP IN THE AIR, it was a lot of editing and having fun with the animation and timing.”
How do title sequences contribute to the movie-going experience?
Gareth Smith: “Something I heard Jason say, and it was a good early inspiration for us, is, ‘you’re in a movie theater, you’ve been sitting in the seat watching all these commercials…and then you get movie trailers, so your mind’s all over the place before you’re watching the movie. People are coming into the theater, sitting down, bumping into you. A title sequence, it’s an interesting tool that helps a filmmaker get the audience settled in a way. In addition to providing two or three minutes to let everybody sit down in the theater, you also use it to get them into the right frame of mind to enjoy the film that’s going to follow it.’”
“Generally speaking, these title sequences really help the audience get settled and get in the right mood for the movie.”
You can watch the full UP IN THE AIR title sequence here.