What happens when you are asked to marry a 60’s spy novel to a 70’s cop show? A title sequence using a combination of character footage and b-roll from an obscure French heist movie, all with a healthy dose of half-tone and popping color. The Jewel Thief titles were designed to introduce the main players of the story and locations without giving too much away. No spoilers here!
Now streaming on Hulu, this fun and engrossing cat-and-mouse tale hitting multiple tones, Jewel Thief gave us the opportunity to play with a variety of design styles while ensuring the various elements were all cohesive and unified.
Expertise
- Creative Direction
- 2D Animation
- 3D Animation
- Motion Design
- VFX
Saul Bass meets Mannix
Explorations
Some other takes on what the titles could be. In the end, learnings from each of the explorations ended up in the final delivery.
Design Elements
Hilarious and suspenseful. Playful and dangerous. The graphics package for Hulu’s documentary about Gerald Blanchard’s extraordinary life of crime needed to be flexible enough to encompass all the various tones the story takes on. We created two distinct photo environments to carry archival photos: one from Gerald’s perspective, and the other from the police investigators. We leaned into imagery of scrapbook pages and microfiche scans to ground the images in a tactile, tangible world.
BeforeAfter
Visual Effects
Sneaky like a thief. In addition to the motion design, we delivered a number of invisible VFX shots. From screen replacements, set extensions, and interview touch-ups, we did our own sneaky deeds right under your nose.
BeforeAfter
BeforeAfter
Case Closed
The home stretch of graphics and animation is always an exciting time on a film. We’re thrilled to see The Jewel Thief out and streaming to the world and to have collaborated on bringing it to life. Just like Gerald, we’re off to our next job…somewhere!