Elsa and Fred

We are delighted to announce we have been awarded the title sequence for ’Elsa and Fred’ directed by Michael Radford‘s (‘Flawless‘, ‘The Merchant of Venice‘).

A remake from the original Spanish-Argentine film co-production (‘Elsa y Fred‘) directed by Marcos Carnevale and starring Manuel Alexandre, China Zorrilla and Federico Luppi.

‘Elsa and Fred‘ is the story of two people who at the end of the road, discover that it’s never too late to love and make dreams come true. Fred moves into an apartment after losing his wife where he meets Elsa, who bursts into his life like a whirlwind. Surrendering to Elsa’s will to live life to the full, Fred learns how to live again. When he then finds out about Elsa’s terminal illness, he decides to take her to Rome to fulfill Elsa’s lifelong wish of reenacting Fellini’s famous scene in ‘La Dolce Vita‘ at the Fontana di Trevi.

Work for us on the title sequence is already underway, and we are working closely with Michael and editor Peter Boyle (‘The Hours‘, ‘The Thing‘ 2011) to set the tone of the film.

Starring Shirley MacLaine (‘Terms of Endearment‘), Scott Bakula (‘Behind the Candelabra‘), Jared Gilman (‘Two-Bit Waltz‘) and Marcia Gay Harden (‘You’re Not You‘), the film also stars Christopher Plummer (‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo‘) who recently finished HBO’s latest production ‘Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight‘ for Stephen Frears, which we also created the title sequence for.

We look forward to working with the team on this film and sharing news with you all as we progress.

Please note: All images remain the property of their respective owners.

The Numbers Station title sequence

We have pleasure in sharing with you our main title sequence for The Numbers Station.

Starring John Cusack, the film has recently been released by Matador Pictures to download and on-demand in the UK.

The Numbers Station is a British-American action thriller, also starring Malin Åkerman, about a disgraced CIA black ops agent assigned to protect the code operator at a secret American numbers station somewhere in the UK.

The film now also available on DVD in the US, has been directed by Kasper Barfoed and produced by brothers Sean and Bryan Furst of Furst Films (Daybreakers, The Girl in the Park, The Matador) along with Nigel Thomas of Matador Pictures (Princess Ka’iulani, Dread, Book of Blood).

So, here’s our sequence for the film…

To see more of our title sequences visit: http://www.richard-morrison.co.uk

One Direction: This is Us

We are hugely excited to be able to announce we have been awarded the title sequence for this years summer all-access pass 3D film sensation ‘One Direction: This is Us’.

Work begins immediately having now met on several occasions with the films director Morgan Spurlock (‘Super Size Me’) and post production supervisor Mark Harris.

We suspect most of you already know, One Direction are the latest English-Irish pop boy band phenomena consisting of members Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne, Louis Tomlinson and of-course Harry Styles. Having finished third in the seventh series of British television show ‘The X Factor’ in 2010 and then being signed to Simon Cowell’s record label Syco Records. One Direction have gone on to success after success, selling more than 14 million singles and 8 million albums around the world. Winning two Brit Awards and three MTV Video Music Awards and proclaimed 2012′s “Top New Artist” by Billboard.

This year fans will be able to see the group live on-stage and behind the scenes, as the camera follows the boys whilst on tour and with their families. Produced by Morgan with Adam Milano, Ben Winston of Warrior Poets and Simon Cowell, the film is being released in August by Tristar Pictures, and promises ‘More shirtless moments than you can imagine’.

We look forward to sharing more news on the development of this as we progress. Here for you is the official trailer:

Please note: All images remain the property of their respective owners.

Cannes special screening of Believe

‘Believe’ directed by David Scheinmann is the third film we have created the titles for, to get special screenings at this years 66th Festival de Cannes.

Produced by Manuela Noble of Wachafilm with Ben Timlett and Bill Jones of Bill and Ben Productions, and edited by Julian Rodd – the film screen tomorrow morning at 9:30 at Gray 4 and on Monday, May 20th at the same time.

We wish them all, every success at the festival.

Riot on Redchurch Street screens at Cannes

This weekend sees Trevor Miller’s ‘Riot on Redchurch Street’, get a special screening at the Marché du Film Theatre located in the Palais at Cannes.

Produced by music manager and promoter Sean McLusky, and starring Sam Hazeldine, Alysson Paradis and Jesse Birdsall (seen below). The film tells the story of a love-triangle that takes place between an East London rock ‘n’ roll manager and two of his clients – an up-and-coming girl singer on the verge of mainstream success and the young, front-man for a local punk-rock band, who’s about to crash and burn, leads to disaster. As the star-crossed lovers tear each other apart, a showcase gig in London’s Shoreditch area goes badly wrong, igniting local community tensions. Now, there’s a riot on Redchurch Street.

We wish the guys a great weekend for their Cannes premiere.

The 66th Festival de Cannes

Cannes has come around again and this Wednesday (15th) sees the 66th festival kick-off with ‘The Great Gatsby’ officially opening the annual event.

Regarded as the leading festival in the cinema industry’s calender,  Baz Luhrman’s 1920s 3D extravaganza starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan, will be the glamorous focus of the most high-profile function of the fortnight.

This years festival will see ‘The Selfish Giant’, the second film from British director Clio Barnard, who made ‘The Arbor’, playing in the Directors’ Fortnight. With ‘For Those In Peril’, the debut film from the Scottish film-maker Paul Wright screening as part of Critics’ Week. We also look forward to seeing Stephen Frears’s film, ‘Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight’ which we created the title sequences for, screening out of the main competition.

Festival organisers also announced that the latest film ‘Only Lovers Left Alive’ by Jim Jarmusch, who made is name in 1984 with ‘Stranger Than Paradise’, will be running for the Palme D’Or, the first time since his 2005 entry, ‘Broken Flowers’.

An absolute delight too to see Saul Bass’s 1958 title sequence for Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Vertigo’, being screened as the film plays in Cannes Classics.

Here’s the list of the films In Competition this year:

‘The Great Gatsby’ – Baz Luhrmann
‘Un Château En Italie’ (A Castle in Italy) – Valeria Bruni Tedeschi
‘Inside Llewyn Davis’ – Ethan and Joel Coen
‘Michael Kohlhaas’ – Arnaud des Pallières
‘Jimmy P.’ (Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian) – Arnaud Desplechin
‘Heli’ – Amat Escalante
‘Le Passé’ (The Past) – Asghar Farhadi
‘The Immigrant’ – James Gray
‘Grigris’ – Mahamat-Saleh Haroun
‘Only Lovers Left Alive’ – Jim Jarmusch
‘Tian Zhu Ding’ (A Touch of Sin) – Jia Zhangke
‘Soshite Chichi In Naru’ (Like Father, Like Son) – Kore-eda Hirokazu
‘La Vie D’Adele – Chapitre 1 & 2′ (Blue is the Warmest Color) – Abdellatif Kechiche
‘Wara No Tate’ (Shield of Straw) – Takashi Mike
‘Jeune & Jolie’ (Young & Beautiful) – Françoise Ozon
‘Nebraska’ – Alexander Payne
‘La Vénus À La Fourrure’ (Venus in Fur) – Roman Polanski
‘Behind The Candelabra’ – Steven Soderbergh
‘La Grande Bellezza’ (The Great Beauty) – Paolo Sorrentino
‘Borgman’ – Alex Van Warmerdam
‘Only God Forgives’ – Nicolas Winding Refn

Bob Blagden – Designer of the TOTP logo

‘Out to Lunch’ – with the designer, writer & director Bob Blagden to hear his fascinating story on how he designed the original 1970s Top of the Pops logo, and I asked Bob if he would kindly share with us how he came to design the logo and what his inspirations were?

Sometime in 1973, BBC Graphic Design department, BBC TVC, Wood Lane, W12…

“I was an assistant designer working under senior designer Alan Jeapes, who had a reputation for designing high end opening title sequences.

The Design department was finding it hard to get a designer to do the new TOTP title commission. It was considered by the established designers as being low end work, not to dirty their hands with. For me, it was a chance to prove myself.

At Portsmouth Art College, where I studied painting and sculpture 1964-69, I was heavily influenced by the Neo-Pop Art Movement – Warhol, Lichtenstein, Rosenquist, Dine, Johns etc. We were into the whole Americana thing, Beach Boys, Jan and Dean, skate boarding down the corridors, white Converse All Star trainers, short blonde dyed hair, Levis 501s, tight white T-shirts with cigarette packets rolled up in the short sleeves – very James Dean driving around in those oversized 50s classic cars, with their chrome space rocket inspired design. They had just put the first men on the moon and I was reading Tom Wolfe’s ‘Tangerine Coloured, Kandy Flake, Streamline Baby’ and ‘Medium is the Message’ by Marshal McLuhan.

My final degree show was inspired by all this USA culture and I used a lot of luminescent plastics i.e. Perspex that imitated neon signs, that were formed into iconic space age comic images. My thesis was on the work of Andy Warhol.

It was all these images that were going through my head when I had to come up with a logo that was to be used to re-brand one of BBC’s long running popular music shows. I’d never designed a logo before, just as I’d never been taught the nuances of graphic design. It was a massive challenge – a make or break situation, would I fall flat on my face?

I looked through a lot of my art books including the photographic coffee table book on 50s US cars that I rated as being the real sculpture of the time, the people’s commercial art, that ordinary people were driving around in, not aware they were driving around in works of art – not in art galleries but on the streets. This became my source of inspiration for the TOTP logo, the lettering on the Chevrolet, Chrysler, Pontiac cars. They were linked up by a metal line that connected each letter, so they could be manufactured in one piece and attached to the bonnet, side or hood of the car.

In 1973, TOTPs had a new series producer Robin Nash, who replaced the originator Johnnie Stewart, with his own special logo next to his name – Johnnie sitting on a stool holding his jacket over his shoulder. I showed Robin my various ideas for the new logo and nervously waited for his response. After what seemed to be hours but
was only seconds, he pointed to the design he liked. I was physically relieved and went to the 4th floor bar feeling good.

Using pencil and paper, I sketched out various typographic designs, literally cut and pasting as this was all pre-computer and monopolising the only grant projector the department had. You placed your work under this optical equipment to enlarge or reduce elements of your design to make it resolve into the design I was trying to achieve. This took several days before I was happy.

A lettering artist Ted Cload came into see me and I showed him my design. He ummed and arrhed saying it was a hard bit of art work to do and wasn’t confident it would work. I told him to try his best. After a couple of days, and a few anxious phone calls, he finally appeared. He removed the protective cover to reveal the finished artwork – it was ok but the thickness of the lettering and spaces weren’t quite working. So I sent him off with the changes I felt it needed but began to have my doubts it was going to work.

I needn’t have worried. When Ted came in with the revised artwork I was so relieved and pleased with the result. I made several sized photo copies and in various colours of the finished logo ready to present to Robin Nash. He was thrilled with the result, so much so, he asked me to design a total title sequence for the re-launch of the new re-branded TOTPs. I was to use the latest digital technology from the US, the only one in the country, especially imported into the basement of Ranks Labs, Wardour Street.

I was warned the test of a good logo was how long it will last – it must have been ok as I think it lasted 15 years.”

Bob Blagden, BBC graphic designer 1969-84.
Film and TV director -  1984-today.

Here below is a picture of Bob back then along with the football team who met every Thursday evening to practice for fun at Scrubbs Lane, next to the prison, just up from TV Centre.