I'm
very interested in title sequence design, and decided to indulge
my love of Dark Shadows by creating a special set of titles,
giving the show a contemporary feel. A great influence was ITV1's
short-lived soap Night and Day, particularly the vertical
linear aspect of its titles, and its haunting theme song, Tears
Will Fall, featuring Kylie Minogue, which I used as a starting
point.
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Although
Dark Shadows videotaped in a studio, I was able to use
sections of its feature film spin-off, House of Dark Shadows,
which features beautiful photography by Arthur Ornitz. The character
shots were graded in Adobe Premier to improve their saturation,
with a golden wash to suggest candlelight and cover the inconsistent
light sources between them.
The
basic theme was of shadows enveloping the characters, which provided
swift transitions between shots. Gradient mattes produced in Photoshop
created the effect, each animated to swipe across the shots. Various
footage was reframed or given artificial tracking to improve the
compositions and a selection of complimentary split-screen images
were placed in the dark areas, including ocean footage and animated
photographs. For the shot of Julia Hoffman - with no available
photos left to use for sidebar elements - a heavily cropped version
of the same shot was superimposed and tracked at a different speed
to create a graphic element with an illusion of depth.
The
combination of a dynamic new theme and the excellent original
photography gave a rare opportunity to see Dark Shadows in
a contemporary vein and was screened at the 2003 Dark Shadows
Festival.
Tears
Will Fall Written by David Arch
and Toddy, performed by Kylie Minogue. Original Photography by
Arthur Ornitz. Graphic Design and Editing by Stuart Manning
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