While at Vancouver Film School I picked up some basic 3D modeling and animation skills that I used to create a title sequence for a potential half hour TV sitcom called When I'm Sixty-Four. Once I've tweaked the 3D file to take advantage of some of the new features in the latest version of the software I'll upload the video to Vimeo. In the meantime if you mouse over the photos you can learn a bit about the process used to create my title sequence.

a television title sequence modelled and animated in 3D by Graham Collins

The first step in creating a television title sequence is reading the series bible which summarizes who the characters are and the events that have brought them to where they are now. This document sets the tone that the creators want to achieve with the show.

a television title sequence modelled and animated in 3D by Graham Collins

Grace Woodruff enjoyed the benefits of being a political power couple with her husband known as The Captain. When he died Grace discovered that he had squandered the family fortune. So off she goes to the Sunset Suites Retirement Community.

a television title sequence modelled and animated in 3D by Graham Collins

There are many other things that occur in Grace's life before the show starts so I decided to tell the characters back story in the title sequence. Since cake is often used to celebrate the milestones in our lives I decide to place the titles in icing on the various layers of a cake.

a television title sequence modelled and animated in 3D by Graham Collins

I modelled the characters in primitive shapes to suggest the doughy figurines that would live on top of the cake.
I chose stereotypical looks because each character had to be distinct and easily recognizable even when Grace and The Captain got older.

a television title sequence modelled and animated in 3D by Graham Collins

Two of the other characters I created represented their daughters. Louise was the image-obsessed princess and Helen was the wild child who disappeared following an argument with The Captain and got pregnant after hooking up with a biker dude.

a television title sequence modelled and animated in 3D by Graham Collins

While the cake and the decorative beads were relatively easy to model and texture the roses proved to a be quite a bit more challenging. However the most time consuming task was creating the lettering on the cake.

a television title sequence modelled and animated in 3D by Graham Collins

The font that looked most like icing in print had very sharp corners and edges as shown in the blue F. When extruded in 3D the letters didn't look at all like icing. As seen in the yellow F I rounded off the sharp edges of each letter by hand using Adobe Illustrator software.

a television title sequence modelled and animated in 3D by Graham Collins

While the difference may not be obvious in these small web images I've included a closeup of the top of the F to see the effect of my rounding off the tips. This was definitely an example of where my attention to detail paid off.

a television title sequence modelled and animated in 3D by Graham Collins

I am proud of the concept I devised for this title sequence and the pitch package I presented in class.

While 3D modelling, animating and rendering can be very time consuming I really enjoyed creating this project.