9. Title Sequence p3

The workflow I decided upon was to simply create the title screen, and then that image would dictate where the animation would come from and go. But all of that was a bit hard if I didn't have a title. In fact, I looked through some old books by the Japanese artist Yoko Ono, and tried to get ideas for a title and themes from there. After writing several ideas down, and playing with them, I landed on "Listen To The City Breathe."

With the title, I was able to design the title shot. Not being a professional graphic designer, I only have a few go-to techniques. And so these same techniques carried over into this project. And so I got the image that I landed on here.

(In fact, after doing a bit more graphic design research, the title image for the next film will be slightly different. I was reading through some graphic design books, and I saw an example that really stood out to me; so I decided that I would add a bit more color to the gray background... but I didn't get around to making the change by the finish of the film. Then when I uploaded the image to instagram, I applied the perpetua filter, which gave the image the look I was after! So I went into photoshop, and tried to emulate that filter, and after playing with the image a bit more, I came upon a final design that I really like. But it will have to wait for the next film, since I made the change after this film about Ramon was already released.)

After editing together a few iconic New York shots, plus my title screen, I also wanted some text to fly across the screen. I already had a pool of ideas based on the words that I had already gotten from the Yoko Ono research. These were possible titles that I had considered for the series, but ones that I ultimately passed on. However, I still liked the ideas and emotions they evoked, and I felt that they still could contribute to the film. So I decided to have these short phrases pass across the screen at different times during the opening title sequence. However, like I learned from the shots that panned across the screen, having these phrases dart across the screen were to much for the viewer's eyes, I felt. I predicted that any viewer would not know where to focus her gaze. So while an early version of the title sequence had these phrases, I changed them for the final version. Instead I tried to get at the essence of the phrases with just one word, and then have that word engulf the screen. After rearranging the single words, I ended up with the words, "Dream, Live, Shine, NYC." I thought that those words were imbued with enough meaning that alone they would convey the themes and idea behind the film; but together they also worked, since my goal is now to tell the story of individuals in New York City, from their dreams, to their lives, to their shining moments. 

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