Imaginary Forces: The Inside
On the Imaginary Forces website, I found the title credits to the TV show The Inside. You have to go to their projects menu and then navigate to the TV Main Titles section. There, you will find The Inside. Anyway, I picked this one because it caught my attention. I used to watch this show with my sister during the summer. It was really good! Of course they took it off the air. :( They didn't even give it a chance! Okay, okay, I'm not here to rant about the station canceling the show, instead, I am here to talk about the great titles by Imaginary Forces!
So, as I watched it, I noticed numerous things that fit really well with the theme of the show. First of all, the show is a crime drama based in Los Angeles. It has quite a creepy feel and therefore, the creepy feel in the title credits fit perfectly.
It first started off with a vein-like structure that morphs into a highway that's built similarly. The camera instantly zooms in and then appears as if it's traveling along the roads. A clip of actress, Rachel Nichols, comes up as the background is still the highway adventure. By putting her face over the moving background, the piece seems constant and continuous as if you are traveling along and meeting these actors on the way.
It goes back to the highway-like scene where there are streams of lights circling around the road. There is also a fog that sort of hangs around most of the scenes. After the lights on the road, there is an actor and his name. The text with the names that show up are short and in all caps. This keeps the surrounding box, that flickers in an out, tight and straight as if there are two rectangles. It's very neat and crisp. It's obvious the creators wanted more focus on their faces rather than the actor's names.
The next scene that seems more important is the scene where there is a dirty hand holding a serrated knife-like object. This extreme close up shows great detail: the dirty hands and the unusually clean knife. The scene quickly cuts to the next scene where the camera is even more close up to the knife and the hand rubbing off a dark liquid. Can we say....blood? Even though the whole animation is very dark and the colors are mostly blue, green, and black and white, we can assume that the thick dark liquid is more than likely blood. The viewer can tell that this person wasn't just chopping onions.
Our suspicions become more clear as we see a close up of a hand that's dangling with dripping blood. Again, the colors may be very saturated, but we can guess that the liquid is blood. It cuts to a body laying on the ground. Looks as if our suspicions were correct.
It continues with the cut-ins of the actors and the vein structure moves next to them in some cases. At the very end, there is a body floating in the water and grid marks fade up revealing a map with Los Angeles on it. This gives us the location of where this show is going to take place. The grid marks then change into small specs of light. The camera moves to a horizontal view and shows that the lights become city lights as the title fades in and towards the background.
Through the title credits, the animators made it easy to see what the viewer was going to be watching and what to expect. It gave me the sense of mystery, crime, and chills as I watched it, which fit perfectly with the late great show: The Inside.
So, as I watched it, I noticed numerous things that fit really well with the theme of the show. First of all, the show is a crime drama based in Los Angeles. It has quite a creepy feel and therefore, the creepy feel in the title credits fit perfectly.
It first started off with a vein-like structure that morphs into a highway that's built similarly. The camera instantly zooms in and then appears as if it's traveling along the roads. A clip of actress, Rachel Nichols, comes up as the background is still the highway adventure. By putting her face over the moving background, the piece seems constant and continuous as if you are traveling along and meeting these actors on the way.
It goes back to the highway-like scene where there are streams of lights circling around the road. There is also a fog that sort of hangs around most of the scenes. After the lights on the road, there is an actor and his name. The text with the names that show up are short and in all caps. This keeps the surrounding box, that flickers in an out, tight and straight as if there are two rectangles. It's very neat and crisp. It's obvious the creators wanted more focus on their faces rather than the actor's names.
The next scene that seems more important is the scene where there is a dirty hand holding a serrated knife-like object. This extreme close up shows great detail: the dirty hands and the unusually clean knife. The scene quickly cuts to the next scene where the camera is even more close up to the knife and the hand rubbing off a dark liquid. Can we say....blood? Even though the whole animation is very dark and the colors are mostly blue, green, and black and white, we can assume that the thick dark liquid is more than likely blood. The viewer can tell that this person wasn't just chopping onions.
Our suspicions become more clear as we see a close up of a hand that's dangling with dripping blood. Again, the colors may be very saturated, but we can guess that the liquid is blood. It cuts to a body laying on the ground. Looks as if our suspicions were correct.
It continues with the cut-ins of the actors and the vein structure moves next to them in some cases. At the very end, there is a body floating in the water and grid marks fade up revealing a map with Los Angeles on it. This gives us the location of where this show is going to take place. The grid marks then change into small specs of light. The camera moves to a horizontal view and shows that the lights become city lights as the title fades in and towards the background.
Through the title credits, the animators made it easy to see what the viewer was going to be watching and what to expect. It gave me the sense of mystery, crime, and chills as I watched it, which fit perfectly with the late great show: The Inside.
posted by Jessica | 2/10/2006 01:29:00 PM
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