Bending the Truth
Not a single keyframe of animation was set while making the title and graphic cards for the new Watergate series "Gaslit" on Starz. Instead, I shot it using a vintage Montgomery Ward "Airline" Portable Television, an iPhone, and a patchwork of cables and converters in my basement, spending a few nights tweaking and bending the alignment knobs to get the right feeling. Each episode's title card is a uniquely edited piece of the visual experiment that adapts and changes to the show's cold open and tone of music.
Working alongside Directors Katrina Crawford & Mark Bashore of Plains of Yonder, I helped capture the show's themes with a wild experiment in authenticity – uncovering the original analog CBS News "Chyron" typeface and using it to create various graphic information cards that live within the show.
The result is a genuinely analog main title and show package, created through technology invented 50 years apart. The beautifully un-digital, twitching, living abstractions are never-the-same-twice, making an apt metaphor for a society determined to bend the truth.
Credits
Client: Starz
Design Lead, Animator: Anthony Vitagliano
Main Title Concept & Direction: Katrina Crawford & Mark Bashore
Series Creator: Robie Pickering & Amelia Gray
Series Producer: Gregg Tilson
Projects
