Hasta La Motion!

Prologue’s treatment for Robin Hood is a study in patient analogue work. Ridley Scott called on the studio create Legends to open the film as well as End and Main Titles. Ridley’s vision for the film required Prologue to treat all the type in a handmade fashion, this meant taking the type out of the computer for most of the process and filming and treating them as handmade elements.

What stuck out to me were the gorgeous end titles that Prologue worked on in collaboration with Italian artist and animator, Gianluigi Toccafondo. I spoke with Prologue’s Creative Director on the project, Henry Hobson about their process for type development for the film and how they worked in collaboration with Toccafondo, here is what he had to say:

The type development was key to our work at Prologue, our idea was to echo Tocafondos effect with our typography. Initially we worked with existing fonts but found them too limiting. So we created a complete custom serif typeface to evoke the adventure, romance, promise, mystery qualities of the movie. We printed out each credit, then hand inked each name, working in 4k meant we could really go to town with really fine details. Manija Emran, one of our typographers, then added amazingly intricate custom flourishes to each letter, not just a full alphabet, but also every single character had its own custom flourish, to produce a truly unique type treatment. Even the locator cards had more love poured into them than most title sequences. During the end credits we printed our comped name cards onto non-porous paper then smudged and distorted by hand each name a dozen times, to produce a living hold and hand made transitions. Principally animated by Georgia Tribuiani, the smudged elements really integrated and transitioned the type into a constantly shifting and flowing sequence.

As a side note, when I was browsing through Prologue’s recent list of work one thing began to become apparent to me, their role in film production has evolved. Prologue was once called upon to vignette a film’s story with their personal treatment as a means to both draw the audience into the story as well as leave them with a final impression of the film. Now it seems that Prologue is called upon to envelope the film with a design system that ties the whole world together. Robin Hood, along with Iron Man 2, Sherlock Holmes and Ninja Assassin, are cases of Prologue’s further involvement with establishing a graphic style for a film.

Click here for the full interview as well as the clips

Director – Ridley Scott

Animated illustration -Gianluigi Toccafonda

Creative Director & Design – Henry Hobson

Producer – Unjoo Lee Byars

Typographic Design & Illustration – Manija Emran

Animators – Jorge Almeida, Cris Kong, Georgia Tribuiani, Stephen Villari

Executive Producer – Kyle Cooper

Posted on Motionographer

MTV has found a good thing, and they’re sticking to it. For the third year in a row, they’ve tapped LA-based Prologue to create the graphics package for their colossal Video Music Awards show.

Directed by Ilya Abulhanov, the condensed sans-serif type and annotated landscapes of the VMA 2009 package build upon the look Ilya established for the OFFF 2009 titles. In the VMA 2009 package, though, the landscape is alive, modifying itself in subtle but surreal ways.

Gigantic telescoping streetlights and strings of gondolas adorn the familiar skyline of New York City, creating a panoply of mechanical transformations that seem to be a literalization of Rem Koolhaus’ vision of a “delirious New York.” Ilya’s split-screen moments create dizzying multiplications of the city, piling density upon density.

I’m reminded a little of Rob Chiu and Chris Hewitt’s titles for Offf New York. Ben “HECQ” Lukas Boysen did a masterful job sound designing both projects, creating a wild mix of tension and wonder that is driven as much by pockets of poignant silence as it is by the tightly controlled cacophony of the city.

Check it out here.

Posted on Motionographer