Project Description:

Digital Design students will collaborate with Film students to create a title sequence for the beginning or end of the Film students’ short stories. The title sequence should be 30-45 seconds long and must include 5 title cards (not including the film’s title). Additionally, it must include the film’s title card and incorporate some level of motion work.

The film is not just about a potato chip inventor and his mission to develop the perfect flavour. It’s about a quest to capture the essence of one of the most elusive yet powerful phenomena we experience: memory.

The film also considers the internal conflicts of self-doubt and inspiration and the difficulty of recapturing past glories and keeping that creative spark lit.

Taking inspiration from surrealistic and satirical films like Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, the Coen Brothers’ The Hudsucker Proxy and Burn A7er Reading, David O.Russell’s I Heart Huckabees, and Spike Jonze’s Being John Malkovich and AdaptaAon, It takes you back tells the whimsical but emotional tale of the important, elusive and valuable nature of memory.

Although the film has elements of darkness and surrealism, the world it portrays will have a more realistic visual treatment. Unlike films by Tim Burton, who delivers his fantastical stories in a cartoonish manner, I appreciate SpikeJonze, David O. Russell, and Wes Anderson’s approach of presenting their own odd stories in a more straightforward manner.

Solution:

Based on the synopsis, the director’s lookbook, and a few artworks created for the film, I decided to include a scene involving chips. I began by developing the rest of the sequence around that idea. I looked at intros to 90s and early 2000s movies for inspiration, which is where I got the initial idea for the fictitious “Wringles” company wordmark reveal at the beginning of the sequence. After that, I decided to use the intro to establish the context of this fictional company. So, I treated the rest of the sequence as a group of possible assets or cut footage the company could have used in their ad campaigns before the story of the film began. Finally, as suggested by the film team, I added one scene where the memory theme is involved to tie the whole premise of the story together.

Results:

The Sequence was a success. The film team was very satisfied with the result, and the evaluation later reflected that the piece was good. A lot of lessons came with the project, such as effectively communicating with a team in another discipline. Using 3D assets and video editing was challenging since it was my first time doing something similar. However, many key learnings here have helped me improve my approach and methodology when taking on a new project.