I started with the Bear Mountain Typography which was created by the band's Creative Director and Visuals Performer Kenji Rodriguez Tanamachi, from there I took the name of the song as reference and played around with the concept.
I created two initial explorations. The first one, just to get the creative juices going, was directly inspired by the title sequence of the classic sci-fi horror movie "Alien", and then I did a second one that was strictly following the directions of the client.
Alien inspired title card
The title as instructed by the client
After delivering a version just as per the client instructions I asked for a couple of hours to play around and delivering a more dynamic version. I got the go ahead so...
The next step was to give it a smoother animation, inspired by the persistence of vision effect when seeing a bright light, so it starts fast and gradually fades away in the same direction it starts.
After that I just listened to the song looking for a spot to take the rythm from and found this very distinct beat that echoes in diminished intensity and happens three times in a row and then again three more times, so I adjusted the animation to happen in those beats. Since it happens in two ocassions I decided to use the first to just show a tease and the second to have a more complete title (but not fully formed as I was counting on the persistence of vision effect and the natural reaction of the human brain to fill in the gaps).
This is an advanced version of the title, animated to the beat of the music.
A version with the lines animated in quick succession
after a three burst sequence of a small amount of lines
Similar as the one before,
it's a three burst sequence of a small amount of lines,
but followed by a three bursts sequence of a double amount of lines
I was happy with this last version, but the client had a couple of reservations about it, first it was overly long and second he wanted the title to appear fully formed at least once.
So I chopped the first batch of beats, and for the second I rearranged the appearance of lines so it goes first beat incomplete title, second beat complete title and third beat incomplete again. This was the result:
Final version of the title
End product
Final thoughts: I'm happy with the end result and so where both of them the director Matt Leaf and BMTN's team.
