Last update, I mentioned the end of the movie and how our audience would be so captured by our credit roll that they would keep watching until the very end. And just like the end credits there are the opening credits.
If you asked a handful of people you are bound to find a few that have their favorite title sequence. I particularly like the opening sequence to the HBO series Entourage. As I have lived in Hollywood for about fifteen years and watching those signs that I sometimes pass twice a day become the names of the people in the show is really nifty.
Being my first movie, I wanted a cool opening title sequence. I knew I didn’t have any money, nor did I have a kung-fu expert who could dodge arrows (and it really wouldn’t flow with the movie either.) So I racked my brain and thought about various ways of putting names on the screen.
I decided that record albums for the opening credits of Peace & Riot would be a good choice. We contemplated having the records come out and spin around or something, but it would end up taking some type of computer whiz to pull that off. And a whiz usually wants money. With limited funds, we figured something “real life” would be the cheapest route.
After discussing ideas with my brother and other people involved in the production I set out to create my own original artwork. Though surely I’d be inspired by graphics I have seen while growing up and hopefully those influences would come out of me to create something visual. I am no artist. Let me repeat, I am no artist. The only thing I think I got going for me, is that I know what I like when I see it. So it’s not hard for me to say “that doesn’t work” or “that sucks” even when I just put a few hours into it. Knowing that, I would just have to create hundreds of albums until I could bear to look at eleven of them.
I drew a couple of crude sketches on some post its and borrowed a digital camera and went out into the streets of Los Angeles. Days later and a few hundred pictures that could become a handful of good ideas . I then passed along some of the more creative concepts. I asked my brother to take a picture of someone handcuffed. The picture would then be put through the magic of photo-shop to get the savage look I was after. Then I relayed some of my more visual ideas to Mari Kossman and we worked on some graphic art pieces together.
After calling a number of print shops, I found one that would agree to print up each cover for $5. We also priced out printing on actual album covers, but that was way too pricey.
As I am about as good with crafts as I am with Photo-Shop, I took the prints to Ventura to again work with the ever-so-talented Ms. Kossman. We went shopping for used/abused 12” Vinyl. Cost was most important as we knew we’d be cutting and pasting on them (the old fashion way, not with a clicks of a mouse) and so we found the cheapest used records we could.
Sure enough we found a place that sold these pieces of the past for under a buck each. Walking away with a dozen, we headed back to the art studio (Mari’s apartment) and scissor’d/glued the stuff like a couple of 4th graders. I inevitably destroyed a couple because I am a little excessive with the glue, so I’d have to spend a few more bucks on new prints, but she got them right after I completely handed over the task to her.
