THE CASEYS
Short film
My job: special effects assistant, titles designer

One of the central plot points / visual motifs / pains-in-the-butt of this film was this huge yellow road sign that landed on the nice suburban lawn of the nice suburban Casey family. So while we're shooting the film, I decided, "Wouldn't it be neat if we could do the end credits on the sign?" One of those decisions that hits a fellow out of nowhere. But I loved it and so did the director.

There was no time to shoot the actual credits on the sign, but I took photographs of a complete font set of the signs' lettering. (Two font sets were used to do the digital sign lettering; a font the sign came with, the name of which I do not know, and a bastardized form of Impact that I created myself on a letter-by-letter basis as needed.) I then rotoscoped the letters and assembled graphics.

It turned out to be good that I did this, as we eventually needed that complete font set to, in post-production, re-letter a sign that had been shot with the wrong words on it. Therefore, my titles work saved the film. Or at least that scene... I like to think.

I created the scrolling credits in a manner suggesting the sign using the Impact font and perspective distortions to suggest a sign tilting away from the viewer. I did it in dreamlike, slightly off-kilter colors, to mirror the main character's fantasy.

I did opening credits in the same style of text, but only to the point of arranging the lettering; effects supervisor Daniel Viney did the motion tracking of the titles with Commotion. I myself did some work on that shot with Commotion—wire removal.

Pictures of the credits that went on the sign in the end credits, before the scroll.
Scrolling credits at the end of the film.