Monday, May 14, 2007

The Falcon's Return

This is the latest test for The Falcon's Return. It is the opening title sequence. The titles may change as we get more people on board, and the cast may change before all is said and done.
I wanted to see if I could emulate the look of not only the titles from The Maltese Falcon, without directly imitating them, as well as getting the effect of titles shot as artwork and printed on an optical printer, rather that the more stiff look you normally get from digital. These were, of course, digitally-made, but I pulled a few tricks out of my sleeve to give it more organic look of film, especially the fade-ins and fade-outs. Film done on an optical printer or animation stand tends to show certain photographic characteristics, including holding the highlights during a fade out, so that as the image fades away, the highs stay visible longer than the darks. CGI fades tend to create a flat veil of black across the entire image at once, and don't appear photographic. So, I tried to get away from that with these. I must admit, I'm very happy with the way they came out.