Main Titles
NY Ink
Main Title
Client: TLC
Studio: Joyride
Working in concert with the tattoo artists, we created custom graffiti art for each of the cast members that both reflect their personality and link them to the gritty, ink-stained streets of New York City. We directed, designed and edited the show open to follow Ami, the boss, as he returns to the city, collects his crew and leads them to the stoop of his shop. While this project wasn’t always easy, at least we didn’t have to adapt our designs for an elbow or a knee.
Director: Aaron King
Art Director: Steven Harper
Creative Director: Aaron King
Producer: Katie Larkin
Editor: David Gargani
Designer: Jiyeon Kim
Lead Animator: Frankie Principe
Lead Animator/Designer: Patrick Arrington
Animator: Junsik Na
Animator 2: Jeff Kordova
Hung
Main Title Pitch
Client: HBO
The show creators wanted a concept for their title that played off Loretta Lynn’s version of “Have Mercy on Me”. Our approach hangs the show’s namesake, Ray, aloft by a sea of women pulling him in all directions. As they rip his clothes off, he is passed along on a wave of hands until he disappears into the hungry sea of women.
Designers Gleb Lobabshov and Ryan Duggan helped illustrate this concept with some clever compositing.
Sanctuary
Main Title
Client: SciFi
Production Co: Pure
Nobel Son
Main Title
Client: Unclaimed Freight Productions
Production Co: Sally Kapsalis Inc./Curious Pictures
3D: Lee Mylks
Director Randy Miller needed a title sequence that intercut with his opening sequence of the pop-thriller, Nobel Son. We created a concept inspired by the artwork in the film but focused on highlighting the fractured relationships in the story. Torn photos of the actors fall through the air in a collage of different faces coming together and falling apart as a beautiful visual counterpoint to the graphic footage it’s intercut with.
Under an unbelievably tight budget and schedule we delivered the title in 2K film resolution. Kudos to Lee Mylks for some nice 3D work and more than a few sleepless nights!
Barbershop
Main Title
Client: Showtime
Production Co: LK Productions
Director: Aaron King
Director of Photography: Eric Zimmerman
Editorial: Lee Gardner
For Showtime’s adaptation of Barbershop we created a title sequence that celebrates the Barbershop as the cultural hub of the community. Collaborating with a barber that specializes in creative haircuts, we shot the process in action within a real Harlem barbershop. The space was a virtual hall of mirrors which provided a shooting challenge that really helped create the filmic style that makes this piece stand out.
True Blood
Main Title Pitch
Client: HBO
Everyone knows True Blood by now. And the beautiful title the team at Digital Kitchen made for it. This was my treatment for that title…
One of the tasks given us by Alan Ball was to transport the audience from the world they know – to a world they don’t know. In rural Louisiana. Seeking to refer to vampires without showing them, this concept studies man’s seeking of the everlasting. Of the transcendent. By hitting a balance between the everlasting and the carnal we struck a tone where Vampires seem to be a natural extension of our own quest for sustenance. A world where the everyday is mythic and barbaric.
Our approach was to cut together sequences of simple savagery. Everyday folk eating. Couples grinding away in a juke joint. A swamp revival. And a few frames of our more “extreme” passions edited in for punctuation. For the reference frames I borrowed heavily from William Steber. He captured iconic images in Juke Joints that capture the tribal spirit of a rural juke joint. Dancing like that, I think they’ve certainly caught some kind of “spirit”!
12 Miles of Bad Road
Main Title
Client: HBO
Production Co: Pure
When Linda and Harry Thomason collaborated with HBO to make a Texas size dramedy – we conceptualized a larger than life trompe l’oeil to depict the family history on the planes of Texas. That flat plane gives way to depictions of their family intertwined with the story of Texas itself and resolves to a two story foyer gilded, painted and sculpted beyond belief.
Dew Circuit Breakout
Show Package
Client: MTV2
Production Co: Pure
Director: Aaron King
Flame: Jason Cunningham