Mark Gardener led the Imaginary Forces team in crafting the opening titles to AMC's Hell on Wheels. Set during the construction of the transcontinental railroad, the title refers to the tent city filled with gambling houses, dance halls, saloons, and brothels that followed the army of railroad workers as they moved westward. I had my hands in all phases of the project, from concept and design, to shooting elements, through compositing the final shots.

We pitched a number of different concepts to the show runners, but this was the board I designed. I used wildfire as a metaphor for the creation of the railroad. An unstoppable force sweeping across the landscape, destroying everything in its path, but resulting in a new world. It was not picked by the client, and you can find elements from the first few frames reworked in my Underground pitch.

After exploring a series of graphic approaches with the show runners, it was decided that it was lacking a visceral punch, so we went back to the drawing board with a more photographic treatment that incorporated a mysterious figure. The concept was inspired by my original pitch concept with the wildfire, and the frames were primarily designed by Theo Daley, with additional work by myself and Joey Salim.

We were confident that we could create the majority of the sequence by creating and compositing our own elements, but wanted to be sure that the silhouetted figure would be accurate to the show's main character. Mark traveled to Calgary, where the production was based, and filmed the lead actor, Anson Mount. Shot on green and black, interactive lighting was used to simulate the illumination of the fire, and practical smoke gave the later shots a physicality and depth that we could enhance with additional elements in post.

Because we knew we would have a small window of time with Anson, we brought in Wayne Coe, an illustrator, to help us explore camera angles and framing options and give us a better sense of what we wanted to capture on the day of the shoot.

While Mark was in Calgary, I was in Vermont lighting bonfires and filming fire elements for us to composite together into our wildfire. I put a cowboy hat on my brother and used him as a stand-in, and he actually ends up in the final piece when our hero is out of focus. I ended up with over 3 hours of footage that was used throughout the sequence.

Daniel Pernikoff and myself composited the sequence. Every shot required significant compositing, and the majority of them were created entirely from disparate elements and matte paintings.