Made for UTB CC2222 Motion Graphic Design Task 4: Motion Graphics in Film (Semester 4, 2019)
Black Panther (2018) is a film by director Ryan Coogler starring Chadwick Boseman as the title character - an African warrior-prince who after the death of his father, returns to his nation as a king. The film centers around him when an enemy appears to challenge his rights for the throne; the young king must rally his allies and defeat the enemies as a king & the protector of the great African nation of Wakanda.
I chose this film because I love the style & the visuals of the title sequence. Out of everything in the Marvel Studios' Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), 4 films had the most eye-grabbing title sequences. The gifs below are samples of the closing credit title sequence of those 4 films; Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), Thor: Ragnarok (2017), and Black Panther (2018).
Unlike the former 3 however, Black Panther's closing title sequence shares the same style with another motion graphic sequence. The style was used earlier in the film, for the narrated prologue animation that introduces the world to Wakanda - the fictional African country where most of this film is set in.
Both the prologue animations & the closing title sequence were designed, animated, produced by Perception.
Two common approach for the visuals of a closing title sequence are to either use interesting scenes from the film & not afraid of going into spoiler territories, or to summarize the entire the film into an attractive 2+ minute animation sequence. In this case, just like the closing title sequences of other MCU films, Black Panther chose to use the former approach.
The first half of the sequence showcases the names of some of the key crew members who worked on the film. For this duration, the names are accompanied by random images from memorable scenes, sprinkled with patterns inspired by ethnic, tribal, or traditional African fabric & clothes. This part uses props, locations, or actions as the visual piece.
The second half displays the names of the main cast members with the visual of either:
• a key feature or characteristic of the character that they portray; or
• a piece or prop or third-act action associated with their character
The aesthetic of the sequence seems to borrow characteristics of nanotechnology. In the MCU, such technology can be seen used by Black Panther, and Iron-Man & Spider-Man in Avengers: Infinity War (2018), though Black Panther is the first to use before anyone else in the cinematic universe. The concept of nanotech is based on sand-like particles that morphs into a solid object covering the surface of a body, and in the title sequence, it can clearly be seen that every object that forms or breaks are composed of sand-like particles similar to nanotech.
The nanotech-esque objects in the sequence are reactive to the beat of the Kendrick Lamar & Sza's All the Stars, which when mixed with the smooth pans, rotations, blur & zooms, creates beautiful & attractive motions & transitions with great pacing.
The letters for all the text also don't appear or disappear immediately. Initially, the writings appear as randomly changing letters from the (fictional) traditional Wakandan glyph before turning into Latin typeface inspired by the Wakandan glyph. The typeface & glyph are reminiscent of Phoenician alphabets adopted by ancient North African countries.
All of the visual & auditory elements blends really well together. Not only this highly stylistic motion graphics complements the identity of the actual film, having the same style of animation at the beginning & ending of the film gives off a very strong impression to the audience, leaving them with very memorable scenes & visuals even after the film ends. The title sequence really adds to Marvel Studios' attempt at introducing to their existing universe an African-American superhero and his beautiful world by welcoming them with a colorful celebration of the people who portrays them.
