The document discusses motion graphics and visual effects techniques used in film title sequences and production. It provides a case study analysis of the title sequences from the films "Catch Me If You Can" and "Skyfall". The "Catch Me If You Can" sequence uses simple animated characters and music to illustrate the film's storyline of a man impersonating various professions while being chased by an FBI agent. It relates stylistically to the 1960s setting through its Saul Bass-inspired drawn animation. The "Skyfall" sequence similarly depicts scenes and characters from the film through elaborate animated visuals that have evolved significantly with technology. Both sequences effectively summarize key elements of the respective films in an entertaining way to engage audiences before the

1. Motion Graphics and
Compositing:
Case Study
name
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2. 2
Critical Discussion

3. Motion Graphics
Motion graphics are pieces of animation used in a video sequences to give the illusion of
objects or texts moving within the screen. In order to not bore the viewer the animations are
usually eye catching as well as informative such as when educational YouTube videos use
animations to illustrate the dialogue and information given in order to entertain the viewer
whilst still providing key information. Motion graphics can be created in software's such as
Photoshop and illustrator and then exported to an animation software to animate the
created models.
motion graphics proved to be very effective in the silent film era as words needed to be
projected on screen between scenes to give the audience dialogue and context, as they did
not yet have the technology to incorporate audio into video, title sequences would be simple
with white writing on black background as this looked contextually better when shown with a
black and white film, as film technology increased evolved the title sequences became more
complex with different fonts and border lines, this made it more appealing to the audience as
they were excited by the then complex and new animations. In the 50’s and 60’s as animation
started to evolve in the world of cinema with techniques such as stop motion and live action.
These new waves of animation technology meant that films title sequences became longer
more exciting and more apparent to the film, as directors saw that they needed these
sequences in the film to tell the audience who was involved so they might as well make it
more entertaining to the audience. In 1969 the James bond film “on her majesties secret
service” was released, not long after the 1962 film “Dr.No” which created the famous gun
barrel James bond title sequence. This was one of the first times a James bond film
incorporated a scene from the film into the animated title sequence, the film starts with
James bond on a beach, he then runs off camera as the screen darkens and then morphs into
the animated world showing James bonds black silhouette run into the distance as a large
martini glass emerges on the screen, the title sequence is filled with silhouettes of woman as
the seductively sit and walk around the screen and the glass is filled with certain small clips
from the film , these animations are effectively used to show the audience what is going to
happen in the film and who is involved in it such as actors, it also highlights the main aspects
of the James bond brand of girls, guns and martinis whilst entertaining the audience

4. Motion Graphics
This method is also used in the opening credits for the 2012 James bond film “skyfall”, where he is shot on a bridge
and drops into the water below the screens starts to darken as he sinks deeper until he is grabbed by a giant
animated hand and pulled under the seabed into a world of floating animations that flow smoothly with the music
through the sequence, it is a very similar idea to that of the 1969 bond film but is performed in a much more
elaborate and informative way as animation technology has widely evolved so that animations have now become
smoother and more entertaining as animators are able to include impossible looking sequences, it shows animated
silhouettes of bond, guns and girls as well involving characters and locations that appear in the film, telling the
story of the film unknowingly to the viewer before the film has properly started, this is seen as the camera pans
through an animated graveyard as the screen turns red connoting death as this is where the character M played by
Judie Dench is killed, this concept of minimizing the film into the title sequence is used alot in the new age of
motion graphics .
Danny Yount is a highly decorated film and television director and main title designer based in los Angeles. Through
his career he has designed and created the main title sequences for many box office films such as kiss kiss bang
bang, iron man, Tron legacy, Sherlock Holmes and iron man 3.aswell as being nominated for three Emmy awards
and winning two he has a had a very successful career and is held in high regard in the title sequence film
animation world along side great names such as Saul Bass, who is a very famous icon in the film industry as he
shaped the way title sequences are today he made them more exciting and informational, and brought in the rule
of involving a short story of the film in the title sequence, David yount like many people in his industry admire Saul
bass a lot, as he recently tweeted a Saul bass quote which reads “I want to make beautiful things, even if nobody
cares”. This quote talks about how the way that title sequences were done in the old days has slightly ruined their
reputation as being the boring part before a film that you don’t have to pay attention to, but now with new
technology, title sequences have become an important part of a movie as it shows off innovative animations and
ideas, which grabs the audiences attention before the start of the film.

5. Visual Effects
When directors are unable to capture places or objects in live action filming
they will use visual effects, in most cases they will create or enhance pieces of
imagery in a realistic way making the viewer think they have used real locations
and props. visual effects are usually done in post-production and are then
added to the live action footage though the use of techniques such as matte
painting, green/blue screens and computer generated imagery which can allow
filmmakers to create extremely realistic characters, objects and environments.
environments are constructed a lot using visual effects as it can save money in
production costs due to the filmmakers not having to travel to many different
locations. Visual effects have evolved over time from the flip book drawing
style animation of the 1800’s, a known pioneer in the world of motion graphics
is marcel Duchamp who painted whirling animated drawings on flat cardboard
circles and spun them on a phonographic able, on camera the drawings would
seem to be 3-dimentional, as this was done in 1926 it was seen as a huge
breakthrough in the world of cinemas it was something completely new to an
unsuspecting audience.

6. Visual Effects – history of matte paintings
Due to not having access to the technology and computer software's that filmmakers do now visual effects were
created using much simpler and more time consuming methods. One method that was widely used was matte
painting, as film makers were unable to incorporate certain locations and environments into their films during
live action filming they would use this technique. Matte painting involves physically painting a certain piece of
scenery that is to be used in the film, usually as the background, the actors will then be put in blank spaces of the
painting and filmed on a static camera giving the illusion that they were in an extravagant location when
realistically they are on the set. An example of this is seen in the 1983 film “star wars: return of the Jedi”, George
Lucas used matte painting to film the wide angle shot of the ewok celebrations within the extravagant location of
the forests of Endor, the great location was painted onto a sheet of glass but certain areas of the painting were
left as clear glass holes, the holes were then filled with projections of live action footage and the whole scene is
shot on a still frame camera. An advantage of using matte painting is it saves in production costs as films don’t
have to build big expensive sets or travel to far locations but it can be a very long and tedious process with no
room for mistakes error. One of the earliest uses of matte painting is seen in the 1898 George melies film “four
heads are better than one”, in the film George takes off his head and places on to table next to him his head then
reappears 3 more times and three more times he takes it off and places it on the table next to him, the heads are
shown to be still moving slightly and making expressions as if still alive leaving audiences stunned and confused
as it was something never seen before, they though it to be some kind of magic. George achieved this affect by
using glass plains painted black, which meant they would not be exposed to light and bland in with the black
background. He would hide the area he needed to behind the glass plains, shoot the scene on a static camera,
rewind the film, and do it again, creating the illusion of multiple heads.

7. Visual Effects- contemporary matte painting
With the help of new technology matte painting has become a faster and easier
method of achieving extremely realistic visual effects, classic method matte paintings
are still used in big block buster films but not as widely as they used to be, the far
backgrounds of an image are still painted but are used as a sort of stencil for animators
to add digital artwork, as backgrounds can now be made digitally using special
computer software they are no longer limited to being only 2-dimensional sill framed
scenes, as now digital software can make entire 3-dimensional sets and locations with
the ability to use digital cameras in order to add movement to the scene, making the
digitally created scenery look even more realistic. This style of digital matte painting is
used in the 2001 film “the lord of the rings: Fellowship of the ring” the far background
of the image is hand drawn but the foreground of the image is a digital matte painting,
which has allowed movement in the scene such birds flying past and the waterfall
flowing. Many people think that the new way in which filmmakers create digital
landscapes takes away the wow factor and personal detail that goes into old matte
paintings, but I think digital matte painting
Is and excellent new way of creating more
Realistic looking pieces of imagery that
Really catches the viewers eye.

8. Visual Effects – travelling matte
Matte paintings proved to be a very effective method in film making, but the only issue was
that the camera had to be static throughout the scene, which in some cases took away from
the realism of the painting so in 1918 a new method of matte painting was created by frank
Williams known as travelling matte painting or the Williams process. Actors would be placed
and shot in front of a black background, then the film would be copied in order to create high
contrast negatives. These negatives then became white silhouettes of the characters and this
created a travelling matte as it moved throughout the frame. This method of visual effects
was widely used in the 1920’s and 30’s, most famously in the 1933 film “the invisible man” the
actor who played the invisible man would wear a black velvet suit under his costume and
stand against a black background, se when he would remove his costume in the film it would
look as if he was invisible, this process mirrors the early stages of the green screen technique.

9. Visual effects- blue/green screen• the blue screen was developed in the 1930’s by RKO radio pictures, it allowed filmmakers to effectively
capture scenes that they were not able to capture in live action filming, the colour blue was used as it was
the colour furthest away from any skin tones, so all actors would be able to clearly appear against it
without disappearing into the visual effects, this new method of visual effects was similar to the travelling
matte paintings technique used in earlier films which convincingly combined image that were filmed at
different times or locations, as coloured film became more popular this technique needed modification to
accommodate colour. early use of the blue screen is seen in the 1940 film, ‘The thief of Bagdad’, where a
giant genie is released from a lamp and the actor jumps into the genies hands, both scenes were shot at
different times and then put together to create the illusion that the genie was a giant, this use of visual
effects earned them the 1940 academy award for best special effects. As it was one of the very first uses of
the blue screen technique it there were many issues with the separation of the two images to create the
matte, leaving a blue fringing around the subject. As this method was seen as such a great breakthrough in
the world of film, film makers continued to experiment with other variations.
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blue screens were predominantly used until the late 90’s, until
green screens were brought in and became hugely popular in the
filmmaking industry as they were easier to use due to them
requiring less light, working well outside and was overall a less
common colour used in costume design. Advanced use of green
screen is seen in marvels 2012 film the Avengers, the film is mostly
set and shot in New York but the primary actors were only able to
be in new York for a short time of the filming process, so most of
their scenes were done on a green screen set and were added into
the live action footage during post production. Due to New York
being one of the busiest places on earth there are restrictions as to
where you can close streets off and where you can fly a helicopter
due to not being able to fly less than 500 feet above a building, so
the actors had to be boxed in by green screen in a large ofarea,
meaning animators had to add in 20 blocks highly detailed New York
streets.

10. Visual effects - CGI
• Computer generated imagery (CGI) is the creation of still or animated visual content through the use of imaging
software, it can be used for many such as set extensions, cg environments and cg characters effective computer
generated images can be produced through the use of various methods and computer softwares but it is a long
and painful process as all factors of the image have to be done in extreme details with no room for mistakes. the
very first use of CGI seen in film was in the 1973 film ‘westward’, the use of CGI in this film is shown through the
eyes of a robot cowboy, who has the ability to see pixelated inferred vision, allowing him to easily see his victims
when they are hidden. this was produced by making sure each frame of footage was colour serrated, scanned and
then converted into blocks for individual colouring. A massive breakthrough in the world of CGI was the 1993 film
“Jurassic Park”, the amount and level of detailed CGI used in this film had never been done before and was a long
and hard process. when the script was finalised, animators started on the storyboard, mapping out and illustrating
all of the script to determine what was worth putting through the 3D animation process. animators used reference
sources to create 2D drawings and relics of characters and locations that needing animating, models of dinosaurs
were laser scanned onto computers. animators created the rough outlines of characters with moving digital
wireframe models, onto which the CG created detailed skin was added. The scene was then built frame by frame
with things being taken into account to add to the realism such as lighting and texture and the way digitally
created characters reacted to these. The 2012 film the Avengers used very detailed CGI when creating the hulk
character, as the Hulk character is actually Steve Bannon in superhuman form producers wanted the creature to
show some resemblance to the actor playing Steve Bannon, mark Ruffalos face was digitally scanned and put on a
computer and used as a template for animators to digitally create the face of the Hulk, the body is also digitally
created and then animated by animators or motion capture of the actor, for most scenes of the film they used
motion capture technique. animators digitally create characters like these using modelling programmes such as
Softimage XSI and ZBrush.
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11. 11
Analysis

12. Motion Graphics Sequence
Catch me if you can – title sequence
The first thing the audience notice in the title sequence is the diegetic sound of music, the
enigmatic music gives a sense of mystery which is a key theme within the film. This sense of
mystery is shown throughout the sequence as the animated character who represents the films
protagonist is constantly looking around, hiding and disguising himself.
The title sequence is used to illustrate the entire storyline of the film, the film is about a young
man who impersonates people with highly qualified professions such as a commercial airline pilot
and a doctor whilst being hunted down by an FBI agent, the sequence starts out with the
protagonist shown to be impersonating an airline pilot and is noticed by an animated character
dressed in a suit and a fedora, resembling the classic look of a government agent or someone of
authority, representing the FBI character antagonist in the film, played by Tom Hanks. The
authoritative figure is shown to be getting closer and closer to the main character as the
sequence continues but is somehow always a step behind, as the animation goes on the music
becomes quicker and the animations start running, signifying the increasing intensity of the chase
as the protagonist is close to being caught. The end of the sequence shows the Tom Hanks
character to be a lot taller than that of the protagonist, representing Leonardo DiCaprio's
character, as he chases the protagonist he becomes smaller and smaller, representing
occurrences within the film, as Tom Hanks is constantly one step behind Leonardo DiCaprio which
over time makes Tom Hanks think less off himself as he is constantly outsmarted, leaving him to
question his skills in terms of his jobs, something that he very much prides himself on.
The whole title sequence relates to the time period in which the film is set, which is the 1960's,
as it is animated in a simple drawn style, which represents old style animation from the early days
of motion graphics. The 1960's theme is also supported by the Saul Bass style that animators
implemented into the sequence, as he is a very decorated animator in the world of title
sequences and was very popular in the early days of huge up and coming market which is motion
graphics title sequences, the authentic and personal hand drawn style give a sense of nostalgia,
highlighting the care that went into making the animation to the viewer.

13. Motion Graphics Sequence
Skyfall - title sequence
The 2012 Bond film has been widely praised not only for the film itself but also for
the extremely well animated title sequence designed and created by Daniel
Kleinman.
The first shot used is a long shot of James Bond as he sinks to the bottom of a lake
after being shot, this gives the viewer a clear view of James' lifeless body highlighting
his vulnerability as he is engulfed by the seabed, dragged under by a giant woman's
hand, this happens as the lyrics read "this is the end", connoting death, although
bond doesn’t die as this is the very start of the film and Bond is the key protagonist
but this could represent a deeper meaning as if to say the old James Bond is dead
and the character somehow changes, this supports the start of film in which bond is
living by himself and has left the life of a spy therefore no longer being 007. The shot
then shows key protagonist bond as cardboard cut out with shooting target marks all
over him, suggesting that James is to be the target in the film, showing a switch in
roles as he is usually the hunter not the hunted. The cardboard cut out is also shown
to have blood draining out of it, the red colour of blood connotes danger and death
and is used a lot through the sequence as the two treacherous themes are extremely
apparent in all bond films. Another theme which is widely explored in bond films is
romance and bonds sensual relationships with women, which is expressed in the
title sequence as an extreme close up of a naked woman's body is shown shot as she
seductively looks back at the camera in the direction of the cardboard cut out of
bond. During the sequence the camera pans through a graveyard as animated knives
and guns drop from the top of the screen and stab into the ground becoming
gravestones as the sky turns red, this represents the deaths of antagonist 'Raoul
Silva' played by Javier Bardem who dies from a knife in the back and 'M' played by
Judy Dench who dies from a gunshot wound, during the final scenes of the film
which takes place in a graveyard. There are two scenes within the title sequence
which show bond essentially shooting himself, one shows bond rapidly shooting his
shadows as they point guns at him and the other shows him surrounded by mirrors
as he shoots reflections of himself, this suggests that throughout the film Bond will
be battling problems within himself as well as fighting the enemy. The nature of
Bonds distressed mind is supported by Kleinman's use of dark tones throughout the
sequence, representing bonds somber thoughts and the films eerie essence.

14. Visual Effects
The matrix reloaded
The matrix movies are originated around an idea of technological created virtual
reality, and due to this the use of CGI was extremely exhausted in the making of the
films. Throughout the films protagonist Neo is hunted by antagonist agent Smith
which leads to a countless amount of fight scenes between the two throughout the
trilogy.one very commemorative fight scene takes place in the second film "matrix:
reloaded" in which Neo can be seen fighting hundreds of agent smith clones. In the
more realistic one on one fight scenes the two actors portray themselves in live action
footage with the help of stunt doubles and slight visual effects, as the scene included
multiple versions of the exact same character all performing different movements
within the same shot various visual effect techniques were used. To achieve the effect
of multiple clones of agent smith attacking Neo in the same shot relatively close to
the camera, agent smith played by Hugo weaving had to be photographed multiple
times in many different locations amongst the set, each shot was then individually
layered into the scene during post production. If the actors had to partake in any
elaborate or dangerous moves stunt doubles were used, if far enough away from the
camera they were just dressed as agent smith but if closer the head was digitally
replaced by a computer generated head of agent smith. Some scenes within the
sequence wee virtually impossible to capture even on digitally edited live action film,
such as when Neo uses a pole to attack the multiple smith clones at warp speed, all
aspects of the scene were CGI from the actors to the set and camera movement. To
create extremely detailed and realistic virtual characters animators captured different
facial expressions and body movements on five HD cameras from different angles and
compiled them onto computer generated torsos, clumps of hair were created and
designed to move according to complex algorithms and appropriate to shadows and
tones. A scanning device used by the US air force was used to create virtual clothing,
in order to capture the shadow and pits of cloth, giving the materials a very realistic
look. The films special effects supervisor, john Gaeta stated in an interview ' the goal
was to create a ballet that could never be staged in the goal was to create a ballet that
could never be staged in real life', as the film includes 1000 CGI shots the film makers
prided themselves on the technical ability's, they wanted to create a memorizing
sequence of visual effects that would really grip the audience and make them
question how something like that is possible.

15. references
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16. Screen Ratios
Screen ration concerns the size of the frame that the image or video will be shown in:
Film – 1.85:1 and 2.40:1
Television – 1.77:1 (16:9)
For web – youtube and vimeo primarily uses 16:9
Videos released online without the proper screen ratios will have pillarboxs added to nthe sides automatically
Resolution
The higher the resolution the higher quality the image as more pixels are used:
4K: 3840x2160
Full HD: 1920x1080
HD: 1280x720
SD: 720x576
Frame Rate
Frame rate depends on how the final product is going to be used:
Film – 24fps
Television – 25 fps
Internet – 60 fps
Or for example if you were trying to capture a slow motion shot you would have to increase the fps
Video Format
Mp4- web format
Mov- uncompressed lossless
Mpeg 2- DVD
Compression
Always take into account what the preferred playback method is of the place where it will be produced:
College work videos will primarily be uploaded to YouTube, this involves using format H.264 and the present vimeo or
youtube at 1080p, 24 or 25p
Higher the bitrate means better quality but largely increases the file size.