Dianasaur Studio

Role: Cinematographer, Title Design

Created: May 2019

Super 8: 
Produced by Steven Spielberg, J.J. Abrams, and Bryan Burke

Title Design: 
Diana Rex

Music: 
Michael Giacchinio

Special Thanks:
Scott Sandifer
Dominique Elliott
Northlands Train Museum
-------

Student project - I do not own the rights to the music or “Super 8”, all rights reserved by respective owners.

Title sequence for Steven Spielberg’s “Super 8”

My goal for this title sequence was to create a prologue to the movie and it's characters that introduces the town and certain elements from the movie as a subtle rebus that fans who have seen the movie before will understand, but won't spoil it for new viewers. I wanted to showcase the town as a character, using a model train village as the focal point, linking a major event of the movie that involves a train with the protagonist's love of building model vehicles.

In order to make a title sequence that aligned with the movie and give it a nostalgic vibe I used footage I shot of model trains using a handheld camera. To achieve the old film camera look, I used some "After Effects magic" (lens distortion, grain, blur, and film burns) to make it feel like it might have been made with the camera which is the movie's namesake. To keep to the brief, I analyzed the length of the actual end credits and matched my new title cards to that length, as well as using part of the original film score to direct the movement of the trains, conducting their movement to the music.

*This was made as a student project; I do not own the rights to the music.