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Jenn Strickland2D Digital AnimationAdrienne Stepaniak12 October 2013

Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World

Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World is a 2010 film based on the graphic novel series by

Bryan Lee O’Mally. It is about a young man, Scott, who must battle the exes of Ramona

Flowers in order to date her. The title sequence of the film, right away, captures the

quirky, crazy, and ridiculous nature of the movie while also paying homage to O’Mally.

The title sequence is inserted into the first scene of the movie. Scott Pilgrim’s little

garage band performs a song; it is during the performance of the song that the title

sequence is shown, playing over a blasting loud track by Beck. Exploding with energy

and color, this title sequence immediately sets the mood for what’s in store in the rest of

the movie.

The film was directed by Edgar Wright, who is most well known for his films

Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. He made the decision to add a title sequence after

receiving advice from Quentin Tarantino to try putting in a title sequence to settle the

audience into the right mindset and feel for the movie. Originally, the scene played out

with only the long camera pull back and then the title flashing over it. To test out whether

adding a title sequence would work, they made a quick mock-up title sequence in AVID

Media Composer with just basic white text on black and waveform graphics.

Immediately, Edgar Wright could tell this opening title sequence was exactly what was

needed to break up the opening prologue scene and the next scenes that actually got the

plot going.

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The shot that has the title flashing over it was an extremely planned out shot. It

was boarded and edited into an animatic put to the track from Beck. The visual effects

company working heavily on this production, Double Negative, created a pre-

visualization animation of the shot to sort out the nuances of this long, pull-back camera

shot. Edgar Wright wanted to do as much of this shot in-camera, so to pull off this shot,

they had to build an extended set and use a 50-foot technocrane. Concept designer and

lead storyboard artist, Oscar Wright (Edgar Wright’s brother) worked closely with the

studios VooDooDog and Double Negative to create the graphic 2D visual effects. The

title graphics were specifically handled by VooDooDog, who also handled the flashback

sequences later in the movie. Most of the graphic effects and other VFX were handled by

Double Negative. Oscar Wright and the VFX supervisor at Double Negative, Frazer

Churchill, knew that they would have to find a way to create visual effects that capture

the spirit of the original graphic novels through the stylized graphic effects. The resulting

effects pay a nice homage to the graphic novel series.

The actual separate title sequence was handed off to a London-based studio,

Shynola, made up of four people. Shynola has done music videos for many bands

including Radiohead and Coldplay; they also created the title sequence for The IT Crowd.

Edgar Wright had seen their music videos and knew that they were pros at synchronizing

visuals to music. They had a ton of references in mind while planning the sequence

including the opening of Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill. Shynola also had a slew of classic

experimental animators to look at for reference such as Len Lye, a scratch film genius. In

the initial brief to Shynola, Edgar Wright said he wanted the title sequence to be like

“2001: A Space Odyssey meets Sesame Street”, a blend between the Stargate sequence

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and early animation for Sesame Street. The main idea and concept behind the title

sequence was that it would visualize Knives’ thoughts on how cool the band was. The

initial pitch from Shynola was an in-your-face “8-bit epileptic eye-fight”. It was very

pixelated and reminiscent of 8-bit video games. Wright thought the energy was in the

right place, but it related the movie too much to video games. Their next plan was to

capture the rough, amateurish quality of Scott Pilgrim’s little garage band by using

colorful scratch film graphics. They made a few little scratch film tests and agreed it was

going in the right direction. They eventually settled on the idea to visually represent all

the characters using subliminal symbols and images on the scratch film visuals. To make

sure the sequence was timed out perfectly, it was doped out on the computer to expertly

sync the visuals to the music. Then, instead of using film, Shynola scratched onto painted

acetate, fitting about a second of animation on each sheet of acetate. They would kick the

sheets of acetate on the floor to pick up dirt and other imperfections to gather that old-

scratch-film feel. The sheets were then scanned on a high-resolution negative scanner and

shopped up into frames. These scans were tweaked and put together into the sequence for

the final result.

The final sequence was explosive and definitely reflected all the crazy scenes that

go down later in the movie. It also subliminally represents events and characters in the

movie with little symbols and images and flash by on the screen; if you’re not looking for

it, you won’t notice it. Also, one of my favorite parts of this title sequence is that it exists

within a scene without just being text superimposed over video footage. It is still a part of

the scene while still being it’s own separate artistic piece. And they bring it all back by

concluding the scene with the person whose mind we were just viewing.

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Works Cited

“Shynola” Art of the Title. n.d. Web. 12 October 2013.

Shynola. Shynola, 2013. Web. 12 October 2013.

“Scott Pilgrim” VooDooDog. n.d. Web. 12 October 2013.

“Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World” Double Negative Visual Effects. n.d. Web. 12 October

2013.

Ulloa, Alexander. “Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World (2010).” Art of the Title. 3 Jan. 2011.

Web. 12 October 2013.

URLS of images used in presentation

http://www.ccp.org.au/flash/2009/10/len-lye/

http://www.oskarfischinger.org/

http://www.bmoca.org/2012/06/stan-brakhage/

http://kimthompsonauthor.com/norman-mclaren-great-canadian-animator/

http://www.sesameworkshop.org/our-blog/2013/02/13/the-story-of-j-sesame-streets-first-

animation/

http://library.creativecow.net/kaufman_debra/magazine_29_Douglas-Trumbull/1

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