Working in close collaboration with the Netflix Animation team throughout the initial concept art and storyboard phase, we developed a profound comprehension of the story and the requisite message to be conveyed through the title card. This understanding provided a solid foundation for us to develop the aesthetic treatment and animation.
The Magicians Elephant story hinges on an ambience of magic and mystery, and the film's characters, environments, and scenes are crafted with a fable-like quality. We chose to emphasize this style in our motion principles and textures, combining the enchanting essence of our painterly ink chamber reveals with playful linear golden element animations. By adding a paper texture and subtle layer depth, we imbued the piece with a tactile quality.
The title floods with gold, catalyzed by the sun’s reveal above as it parts the clouds., an allusion to the premise of the story, where a city shrouded in cloud is liberated by the presence of magic. Our inspiration for the final colour palette was drawn from early concept frames depicting the magical elephant above the clouds. This element was integrated into the film’s opening, serving as a foreshadowing of the viewer’s future experience.
We began exploring our title design with Territory quite early. Starting with a preliminary design idea from our Production Designer Max Boas, the team at Territory brought unique expertise and design ideas to the title exploration, wonderfully capturing and elevating the feeling and tone we wanted. It was an inspiring and very collaborative and iterative creative process.
Wendy Rogers, Director for The Magicians Elephant