Episode Transcript
Don Mock 0:19
Alright, Episode 70. We’re back. We’re back with Mr. C.
Cuyler 0:22
Mr. C.
Don Mock 0:23
How’s it going, bro?
Cuyler 0:24
It’s good.
Don Mock 0:25
Dude, you are super fast on the button. For those that don’t know, I normally count down 3-3-1 before we hit Recording right. Now we’ve got our opening song, and I go 3-2-1 and then Rob generally taps the music button. But it’s 3-2-1 boop! You’re on it. I mean, it’s like immediate.
Cuyler 0:42
Yeah, well, I want to it to line up with the audio file when I go into…
Don Mock 0:49
Well done, well done.
Cuyler 0:50
That way I don’t have to trim too much.
Don Mock 0:52
It’s like calling you on the phone and it doesn’t ring. And someone’s just there. They’re like, hello. You know, it’s like, Dude, it didn’t even ring. Were you’re holding the phone.
Cuyler 0:59
Sometimes I get the weird thing on the iPhone where it just doesn’t ring. You just hear a long pause and then someone pick up.
Don Mock 1:05
Let’s not even get started. I mean, I’ve got all sorts of problems. Half the time my phone just decides to go on Do Not Disturb these days. You know what I mean? It’s like Focus. I hon’t even know what- I sound like an old person who’s technologically challenged. But it’s like, oh, my tech. It just decides to turn itself on to chill mode. It’s pretty funny.
Cuyler 1:23
It’s sounds kind of nice, actually.
Don Mock 1:23
It is rather nice.
Cuyler 1:26
I’m having the issue now with the iPhone where, mine’s… I don’t know what it is. An 11. Something like that. They’re phasing it out. battery dying all the time.
Don Mock 1:35
Yeah. Planned obsolescence, my friend. Yeah, absolutely. All right. Well, anyway, no one tuned in and listen to us grumble about our iPhones. What are we on? We’re on episode 70. This is exciting.The big 7-0 I thought for today, since it’s two designers here, and you do a lot of our motion graphics and a lot of our videos and whatnot. I thought it could be cool to chat about title sequences, our favorite title sequence in movies, television shows, on-screen, motion type. I know the two of us have had many conversations ove the years about how a lot of on-screen type isn’t actually done by type designers. It drives us crazy because apostrophes aren’t right. The kerning is not right. It’s like somebody typed it into after effect. It’s like, Oh, my God, we need a designer to design these things. So when you see a kick-ass movie or TV show that’s got a rockin opening sequence or something, especially typographically, oh, it just feels so good.
Cuyler 1:40
It does. The ones that I think stand out now more than they used to are the TV intros. I don’t know whether it’s the Sopranos who really started the popularity of the intro. Their’s wasn’t very complicated. But Game of Thrones, I believe it was elastic TV, a firm up in New York, who did that. And they’ve done several others.
Don Mock 2:56
Yeah. I mean, that’s like the most complicated CG.
Cuyler 3:00
Yeah, 3D rendered.
Don Mock 3:02
Yeah.
Cuyler 3:02
I don’t even know what they did it in Cinema 4D, or something, and then brought in type on top of it.
Don Mock 3:07
Yeah, absolutely. But the type and that is, I would say, pretty simple.
Cuyler 3:10
The type is simple. Yeah. Which is fine.
Don Mock 3:13
It’s really more about the…. we’ve got three elements here, for the most part. You’ve got whatever the on-screen type is. We’ve got whatever the visuals are-
Cuyler 3:21
And the music
Don Mock 3:22
And the music, right. You stole my thunder. Thanks, brother. To me, the music on is just as important as everything else. For example, we were actually just talking about Twin Peaks earlier in the office today. I think about that Angelo Badalamenti. For anybody who knows Twin Peaks. I mean, that’s a boring title sequence. It’s that weird outline in-line type, with the brown and-
Cuyler 3:46
Pacifically cheesy.
Don Mock 3:47
Yeah, but man, that music is creepy. And the minute it hits, you’re like, ooh, David Lynch, things are happening. It’s got a vibe to it. But it’s really just shots of the Pacific Northwest, the logging. It’s not a very interesting or dynamic thing to look at. But it’s the music that really, really hits home on that one. But anyway, I made a couple notes of a couple things. I actually did show prep for this.
Cuyler 4:11
I made a couple of notes as well. Just a few.
Don Mock 4:14
Who wants to go first on this one?
Cuyler 4:15
You go ahead and go for it.
Don Mock 4:16
All right. I’m gonna I’m gonna start at old school and say no, movie-esque, typographic experience would be complete without having Saul Bass on this list, or all bass. So I’m gonna go way old school and say Saul Bass, Anatomy of a Murder. Are you familiar with the movie poster?
Cuyler 4:34
I’m not.
Don Mock 4:35
Okay, well,it’s just very simple shapes. It’s all flat color. Very simple shapes of basically a dead body. It’s the body, the legs, the arms, the head.
Cuyler 4:43
Okay.
Don Mock 4:43
And it’s just very, very simple to Saul Bass did a tremendous amount of movie posters and all sorts of really fun, typographic expressions. And it’s quirky, weird type. Because it’s an older movie- I think it’s from the 50s, to be quite honest- it’s simple. There’s not a lot of…., it’s the opposite of Game of Thrones. It’s like, oh my god, it’s all…
Cuyler 5:06
Super complex.
Don Mock 5:07
Yeah, so I’m gonna go-old school Saul Bass Anatomy of a Murder. For those that aren’t sure what that means, definitely do yourself a favor. Look up Saul Bass and look up that opening sequence. It’s good stuff.
Cuyler 5:19
I’ll have to check it out.
Don Mock 5:20
Yeah, it’s pretty cool and the movie poster was cool.
Cuyler 5:21
When did the movie come out?
Don Mock 5:22
I don’t know off top my head. I’ll have to google it on my phone. But I want to say it’s from the 50s. Here’s what we’ll do. I’ll take a quick peek on the interwebs, while you hit us with your next one. How about that?
Cuyler 5:34
Okay, the intro that I always think about, because it was kind of one that made me want to do design, or I should say animated Design, Motion Graphics is the intro to Madmen.
Don Mock 5:48
Interesting.
Cuyler 5:48
It’s all super illustrative and it’s got all of the 60s characteristics, but it’s very flat. But it has this whole narrative and character animation with a faceless character that, I guess, is implied to be Don Draper.
Don Mock 6:06
Yeah, it’s the silhouettes, basically.
Cuyler 6:09
And then they bring in a lot of different elements, I think it’s like playing cards and all kinds of stuff, the whiskey. It’s one that I don’t remember as much about the type. But I I remember it being a really, really cool animation. I used to think, “well, that must have taken a team of people to do that.” Now I’ve started started to think that one person probably was capable of doing that, but it was really well done. Really well done animation without having any kind of video. There weren’t too many tricks. It was just very well done flat animation.
Don Mock 6:43
It was very simple. I’m going to call that simple motion graphics. But I think that really, that felt very reminiscent of the era, that madman started in, and I think that’s a good one.
Cuyler 6:55
It felt like the magazine illustrations I used to see in the early 60s kind of thing. So I think it totally worked with the vibe of the show. It had an interesting kind of fun little score to it.
Don Mock 7:04
Yeah, totally, totally. All right, Anatomy of a Murder. 1959.
Cuyler 7:07
- Don Mock 7:10
I did say 50s, and I’m barely correct. We talked about 1959. It’s black and white. The movie poster’s cool. It’s very flat color. It’s very Rothko kinda without the gradation. Well, I’m going to keep the old school animation thing going. I’m going to say, as a child growing up with Looney Tunes and all sorts of fun stuff, I always loved the original Pink Panther movie, opening title credits. I know you don’t know what it is, and you’re looking at me like crazy, but it’s, that’s from the 60s. That’s from the early 60s. I want to say 63. But it’s really the the opening sequence is- call it a cartoon- that doesn’t tie into the movie at all, but it’s got great 1960s flat color, it’s got great 1960s type. And it’s got the Panther jumping around and doing weird things.
Cuyler 7:57
Is that an animated movie?
Don Mock 7:59
No, no, no, no, no.
Cuyler 8:01
Is Peter Sellers in that? Is that who that was?
Don Mock 8:04
Now you’re gonna make me look that up again. Oh my gosh.
Cuyler 8:07
I’ll edit all of this out. Maybe I’m wrong. I don’t know. I was thinking of Dr. Strangelove. That actor.
Don Mock 8:18
It’s the detective situation,
Cuyler 8:21
Maybe I’m wrong. I thought it was Peter Sellars. Never seen it.
Don Mock 8:24
The original- well they redid it in the early 2000s, I feel like.
Cuyler 8:27
Yhey redid it with- I’m probably wrong about all of this.
Don Mock 8:31
Let me hit the cast for- no I don’t know that you’re wrong. No, it is Peter Sellers. Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau.
Cuyler 8:37
Very nice.
Don Mock 8:39
Yeah, good call. Good call.
Cuyler 8:40
Thank you.
Don Mock 8:40
Well, again, I’m gonna say the same thing then. Do yourself a favor and look up the original 19- it’s funny it’s-
Cuyler 8:46
My parents are big fans of the Pink Panther. I think it’s been on before. I’ve never given it a watch as an adult.
Don Mock 8:53
Yeah, I mean, it’s a weird disconnect of, here is literally a pink panther, like an actual cat. You know what I mean? Doing all these different things and even maybe smoking a cigarette. Weird things are happening. Then you cut into Inspector Clousseau. It makes no sense. But great music, too. As soon as you say Pink Panther you hear, in your mind, the Duh Dun, Duh Dun, Duh-dun Duh-dun. So it’s kind of a weird disconnect, but I always thought that was a really good opening one.
Cuyler 8:53
Yeah.
Don Mock 9:24
All right. That’s enough of the old one. Let’s get some modern examples.
Cuyler 9:27
I’ve got one that’s not too old.
Don Mock 9:30
Okay, hit me.
Cuyler 9:31
It’s as old as I am.
Don Mock 9:32
Okay.
Cuyler 9:32
1990
Don Mock 9:34
Oh my gosh.
Cuyler 9:35
Martin Scorsese. Goodfellas, the intro to Goodfellas. The type comes in really fast across the screen. And then the name pops up. Then it will outro the name the same way. It gives you the sound effect of speeding cars at the same time. It comes in right after he says the line “Ever since I was a kid I always wanted to be a gangster.” And he shuts the hood of the car- I believe, I might be wrong as to when intro starts. But there’s a car involved. Either it’s where they’re driving with the guy in the back or it goes back to the very beginning, where he parking Cadillacs or something. But the intro comes in. I love the way that the main actors, or the stars names, come in.
Don Mock 10:18
Yeah, the zoom in, zoom out. Kind of reminds me a little bit of Superman, the origin1970- but it is so ungodly boring. It’s the sound effect with the name coming in (zooming sound). But I mean dude, the opening sequence goes- and it has a fantastic score-
Cuyler 10:34
Right.
Don Mock 10:35
But, man that opening scene, it’s like four minutes long.
Cuyler 10:38
That’s how so many movies to be.
Don Mock 10:40
Eternity, just sitting there watching space, sky, and name after name after name after name. It’s like hey, not that I don’t appreciate all the people it takes to make this movie, but dear Lord, get on with it, everybody.
Cuyler 10:51
When did they start backloading all the credits?
Don Mock 10:54
I don’t know the answer to that. I don’t know.
Cuyler 10:56
Because I rewatched Some Like It Hot. Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis movie. Yeah, it’s the same thing. It was like this long intro with these are ornate cards with people’s names on it.
Don Mock 11:09
Yeah, it goes on forever.
Cuyler 11:10
It’s a Wonderful Life was like that, too.
Don Mock 11:12
Well, I think there was a slow progression into overlapping, in terms of, the action gets going. Dialogue’s happening, things are happening, and then names are just flashing down in the corner. Especially for TV. We started watching Silo, obviously, here in the office, and we talk about Silo, that new Apple TV show. Man, you might be 10 minutes into the actual show-
Cuyler 11:35
And they’re still flashing.
Don Mock 11:36
- before they get to that title sequence, you know what I mean?
Cuyler 11:39
That’s becoming more and more common.
Don Mock 11:41
Yeah, I think that’s a streaming thing. I think that’s, hey, if we don’t get you in the first 10 minutes, we’re gonna lose you forever. So it’s like just get right to it. Get it going. Get the meat hooks in you, get you’re watching something. Then Okay, here’s the here’s the fun cinematic title sequence, opening credits, whatever the case.
Cuyler 11:58
That one’s really impressive. It always surprises me now that, on the very first episode, they give you the option to skip the intro.
Don Mock 12:08
Yeah, I don’t dig that.
Cuyler 12:09
It kind of bugs me, as someone who does motion graphics. Man some of these… A. the company spent sometimes multiple millions of dollars like they did for House of the Dragon. And very first episode, you’re like, Do you want to skip this?
Don Mock 12:24
Yeah, that seems crazy to me. Especially shows that tinker with it every single episode.
Cuyler 12:31
Or season to season.
Don Mock 12:32
Yeah, you think about the Simpsons, like Bart’s writing something different on the board every single episode. Well, you don’t wanna skip that.
Cuyler 12:38
The one on Game of Thrones when- and at this point, it’s been out long enough so this is gonna be a spoiler for some people- When Winterfell is burnt down. The next episode in the intro when it shows Winterfell, it shows it burns burned down. There’s like little details.
Don Mock 12:54
Also near the end, when you’re up by the wall, when the dragon melts the hole in the wal… things have changed up there, too.
Cuyler 13:02
Yeah, they were very detail oriented with that intro.
Don Mock 13:07
Yes. Yes. Absolutely.
Cuyler 13:08
I appreciated it. I never skipped that one.
Don Mock 13:10
I never skipped that one either.
Cuyler 13:11
It kind of set a tone.
Don Mock 13:12
Yeah, it’s part of the it’s part of the jam.
Cuyler 13:14
I felt the same way about the Succession intro, not because of type or video, just the music.
Don Mock 13:19
So you never skipped it?
Cuyler 13:21
No, no.
Don Mock 13:21
I’m going to admit that I skipped. Now the final episode, I didn’t skip it, because I was like, Hey, this Is it. All right. Back to title credits, I will say probably the most famous for me, and one that even came up when I was in school and things like that, and studying and whatnot, is the movie Seven. Seven, I think did a really interesting job of using typography images and mixing the culture. So Seven, the Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman horror movie.
Cuyler 13:29
Gwenneth Paltro.
Don Mock 13:50
Funny, I was just talking to Rob about I’m not a horror guy. This might be the movie that had me jump off, “What’s in the box?” But the opening sequence is super creepy, and it’s kind of the beginning of the grungy, scratchy type. You know what I mean? Not so perfect, kind of the Island of Dr. Moreau title sequence. You know what I mean, that’s scratchy, scratchy. But what was really interesting about that, was the end credits, they ran everything backwards. So instead of coming, from bottom up, it was literally the whole credit scene was backwards and went from top down. That was really well done. It’s a lot of hand-taped things. It wasn’t like, Oh, here’s fade to black, and here’s the credits for the moon. It’s like that was an integral part of the design and the narrative of the movie as well. So it’s pretty awesome.
Cuyler 14:42
Is that a David Fincher movie? Is that correct?
Don Mock 14:44
I’m not a horror guy. So Cuyler, you keep asking me questions.
Cuyler 14:48
The Fight Club intro was really cool, too.
Don Mock 14:51
Well, yeah. The type in that was great. Yeah, absolutely.
Cuyler 14:55
And the way they use the soap bars, with with the type, I found interesting.
Don Mock 14:59
Yeah, that’s an interesting movie. I saw that one of them theater actually.
Cuyler 15:04
You did?
Don Mock 15:04
Yeah.
Cuyler 15:04
Nice. Because I feel like that became more of a cult classic.
Don Mock 15:07
Yeah, I would agree with that. I’d agree with that.
Cuyler 15:09
I don’t remember. Well, I mean, I was younger when it came out. I was maybe 10 or so. But I don’t remember it being some big, mega hit right when it came out. But when I was a teenager, it was like, You got to watch Fight Club. Then it was like every 16-year-old boy’s favorite movie.
Don Mock 15:23
Yeah, for sure. For sure. That was crazy movie. So you have any more? I got one last one I jotted off
Cuyler 15:28
I’ve got one last one. I have mentioned this movie on the podcast before. But the Happy film, Stefan Sagmeister movie. It is like truly a master class of fun type on credits.
Don Mock 15:41
Awesome.
Cuyler 15:42
They they go up and then they hit the top of the page like water. Tthey Just start to fill up the page.
Don Mock 15:47
That’s amazing.
Cuyler 15:48
And then the next sequence, they’ll go up and turn at a right angle off the screen. Then on others, there’s little pictures to the side. When they hit it, they’ll break apart. It’s pretty cool. And then when they do the intro credits… I think he said something about “I have no idea how to start a movie, but as a graphic designer, I know it’s going to start with the credit sequence.” Or the title sequence. So he had all these different titles. Or he writes out The Happy Film, in all these different ways, like physically. Like, he was in Bali, and he used banana’s.
Don Mock 16:23
Nice.
Cuyler 16:23
And he had the monkeys come and take the bananas, and they just reversed it. So it looks like they’re building-
Don Mock 16:28
Yeah, yeah, yeah. that’s great.
Cuyler 16:29
I think he had one where you had a dog, lick the type off of a glass thing, and reversed it. It’s pretty fun.
Don Mock 16:37
He’s always done a lot of three dimensional typography that decomposes, or is altered by the actual environment, which I’ve always appreciated that.
Cuyler 16:45
I think he had some like actual dancers creating some kind of type, like human type.
Don Mock 16:50
That’s cool.
Cuyler 16:51
It was really, really cool.
Don Mock 16:52
That’s super cool.
Cuyler 16:53
Guy has endless creativity. That’s one of the instances where the the film director is a graphic designer. So you get like a full-
Don Mock 17:02
Graphic Designer experience.
Cuyler 17:03
Yeah.
Don Mock 17:03
Yeah, that’s cool. All right. My last one is super modern, is the new Jack Ryan Show on Amazon Prime or whatever.
Cuyler 17:11
I’m trying to think of the title sequence now.
Don Mock 17:13
What’s great about the title sequence is it’s the split screen. I’m a sucker for this. We’ve done this here at work in some projects for clients, where you have the split screen, where one object is kind of silhouetted and tied into another object. So half of the rotary of a helicopter, and you get that circular movement of the helicopter. But then it’s mirrored on the other half of the screen with like, a cup of coffee. These two different things that make these very simple geometric shapes. So the typography, I mean, the music’s fine. Oh, I’m seeing a thriller, things are happening. But graphically, I look at Saul Bass from a type perspective, or Pink Panther and Seven type. The Jack Ryan, one for me is really all about the visuals. It’s very simple, modern type coming in, doing its thing.
Cuyler 18:05
Is it video that they’re doing splitscreen with, or is it graphics?
Don Mock 18:08
It’s video. Yeah, it’s all video. So it’s a bullet on one side of the screen, and then it is a team of people rowing from a bird’s eye view, and things like that.
I think I do remember this, actually.
So it’s so it’s all motion. I mean, subtle motion. But it’s these very simple geometric shapes that are that are flushed out in three dimensional moving pictures, video. It’s just really, really well crafted. It ties in really well to the Jack Ryan kind of narrative. The story of what a badass that guy is, I guess.
Cuyler 18:44
Ivy League. CIA, and let-me-do-it-myself kind of guy.
Don Mock 18:49
It’s half of the military aspect of ranks and then half everyday objects and what’s happening in Virginia or DC and things like that. It’s pretty cool. It’s really, really well done.
Cuyler 19:00
So it’s Virginia. I believe Langley is in Virginia.
Don Mock 19:04
Yeah. Virginia. Yeah, for sure. I mean, they show monument, it’s DC. Yeah, you get all that stuff.
Cuyler 19:11
You gotta cross the Potomac.
Don Mock 19:12
Yeah. I mean, again, I would say any, if you’re interested in motion graphics, or you’re working on a video project, Google. Any of these things are going to be on everybody’s list. I mean, there’s gonna be the top 100 opening credits on Buzzfeed or whatever, you know, there’s gonna be all sorts of stuff.
Cuyler 19:27
Alaska TV does so many of the HBO ones.
Don Mock 19:31
Yeah, they’ve had a niche there, which is, which is pretty cool.
Cuyler 19:33
It’s really all they do. They did the intro to Yellowstone, which I thought was actually really, really good.
Don Mock 19:40
Nice.
Cuyler 19:40
But yeah, they have a wonderful portfolio. You can just go look at like everything. You’ll be surprised how many different things they did.
Don Mock 19:46
Totally agreed.
Cuyler 19:48
But it’s such a big business now. There are there are firms that are studios. That’s the only thing they do. It’s pretty interesting.
Don Mock 19:55
Absolutely.
Cuyler 19:56
a- And yet, they still give you the skip button.
Don Mock 19:59
Well, do us all designers a favor and don’t skip. How about that?
Cuyler 20:02
Yeah, at least not the first episode.
Don Mock 20:03
Not the first one. No, you got to set the tone, man. I mean, I’m with you on that one. I think again, we could probably talk about this for another 10 years, on all of our favorite motion graphics. That’s kind of some of our fun ones, as we’re kicking about, working on projects and things. Some old ones, some new ones. I mean, I’m dipping back to the 50s and then all the way to Jack Ryan here. So a good range. So yeah, I think that’ll wrap it up for today. Where can the people find us?
Cuyler 20:16
Online at.. Geez, I forgot. Online at mocktheagency.com and on the socials @mocktheagency. Is that correct?
Don Mock 20:41
Yeah, that’s all good, man. That’s all good. All right, we’ll talk to you guys next time.
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