The filmmakers invited us to pitch ideas for the main-on-end title sequence. “Werewolf by Night” is stylized to look and feel like a classic horror film from the 1930s or 40s. From the production design to the lighting, the lensing and even the acting, everything has this very timeless and authentic feeling. To stay consistent with this visual language, we focused on solutions that could have been produced during that time period, without cg as a recourse.

We knew this needed to be dark, mysterious, somewhat sinister and we also wanted to play up the vintage look and embrace the imperfections of something made by hand. 

The paper solution allowed us to play with light and shadow in fascinating ways that felt very much of that time.

Since the sequence takes place at the end of the film, we could use some of our favorite moments from the film to create a narrative that celebrates what we just watched. The illustrated vignettes are either directly inspired by scenes from the film or events that we imagined based on the story.

For the opening sequence, we needed to establish the universe in which the story takes place – to show the audience how and why we ended up where we are when the action begins.

We created a series of illustrations that visually represented the story being narrated. Our talented illustrator nailed a style that feels like it could belong behind a glass case in a museum. The intricate sketches are inspired by old etchings and scientific studies which bring that authenticity we were looking for.

These illustrations were brought into After Effects where we animated a virtual camera, timed out to a reference edit, showing different details that tell the story visually. Ultimately, the illustration fades into the live action using the waxing gibbous moon as a connecting element.

After watching a rough-cut of the special, we brainstormed some ideas for vignettes that could work as part of the sequence. These were presented to the filmmakers in the form of a very rough sketch accompanied by a sentence-long description.

Once we had a selection, we started progressively adding more detail to the illustrations and edited a boardomatic to get a sense of timing.

With a sense of how long each shot needed to be, we placed the vector layers in 3D space and we animated the camera. This previz, helped us plan for the shoot by giving us physically accurate measurements, determining what lenses we should test out, and how fast the camera needed to move. Getting the full previz approved by the Marvel team was essential before starting to cut the illustrations out of paper, which was a very laborious process.

On its face this project seemed simple but was actually deceptively tricky. We were shooting small objects very close with a repeatable camera move. The camera was only moving about a foot so there was no need for any massive motion control rigs. It was a bit of a search to find the right tool for that. Also to achieve the depth of field needed at such close distances required a deep F-stop and we were mostly lighting through thick paper. 

So we tested out a bunch of different types of lighting fixtures before the actual shoot days. In the end it came down to something pretty old school – Mole Richardson tungsten fresnels. We could get the fixtures close enough to the shadow box to achieve the levels we needed, and also the focusability and crispness of the light beam really helped bring out the texture of the paper when we put them through the sides or the top.