One of the most stunning opening titles made for television in recent years has to be the opener for True Blood – a TV series created by Alan Ball of American Beauty (writer) and Six Feet Under (creator) fame. True Blood adopted a new twist on the old vampire theme but Ball successfully avoided the all too familiar goth horror territory of Bram Stoker's Dracula and the tongue-in-cheek humor of the teen-angst-ridden, demon infested universe of Buffy. The show premiered in September 2008 on HBO.

In True Blood, which is set in a small town in North Louisiana, vampires have integrated in society and share the same living space as humans thanks to the invention of synthetic blood, which is sold as “True Blood”. Vampires, however, are treated as second-class citizens.

The show is pure fiction of course, but contains subtle and not-so-subtle cultural and historic references to American society today. The show's opening title sequence by Digital Kitchen explores some of the racial, sexual and religious themes that lurk below the surface of the show's story. We asked DK's creative team how they did it.

What is the concept behind the title sequence?
Matt Mulder, creative director: “When Alan Ball approached us to work on this sequence, he introduced two concepts that stuck with us through development and production. First, Alan had covered the serious and self-conscious drama in Six Feet Under. With True Blood, he very much wanted to break from that and express a pulpy romp that was entertaining and unmannered. Second, Ball tweaked Charlaine Harris's original stories, on which the show is based, to parallel the vampire-as-social-outcast characters in True Blood to the very real racial, sexual or social outcasts in America. In short we were to expose the soft pink underbelly of rural stereotypes to find what could be just under the surface.”

Could you elaborate on your interpretation of the classic vampire themes that are explored in the opening sequence - sex, death and religion - and how they relate to the location of the show (Louisiana) and the overall vampire theme?
Rama Allen, lead designer/concept co-creator: “We started by trying to tap into the roots of what we thought made the series compelling, and how those ideas could be communicated without simply mining the well trod visual territory of vampires.”

“After dipping ourselves in southern gothic, from Powers Boothe in Southern Comfort to digesting a pile of Harry Crews novels, one of the biggest ideas we latched onto was “the whore in the house of prayer”. This delicate balance of the sacred and profane co-existing creates powerful imagery. Editorially we collided the seething behind-the-curtains sexuality of the south into the fist pounding spirituality of Pentacostal healings to viscerally expose the conflicts we saw in the narrative of the show. Holy rollers flirt with perversion while godless creatures seek redemption.”

“To house these juxtapositions we created an arc to the sequence. The piece extends from morning deep into the night, and as it does so it's rhythms and content crescendo into increasingly darker and more aggressive territory. In the end, regardless of what kind of evils, sins or vices that were perpetrated throughout the night, there is a redemption through a midnight baptism. It is a cathartic release that allows both sinners and saints to begin the next day anew and is intimately tied to the core of several belief systems in the south, from Christian mysticism to voodoo.”

“In addition we wanted to explore pairings of religious and sexual themes with implied violence. During a healing a white preacher wraps his hand around the throat of a black woman. Flashes of writhing naked bodies could be lovemaking or rape. A woman thrashes violently, and is restrained, while in the (death) throes of the Holy Spirit. Another woman suggestively wraps and constricts a man with her legs at a bar... the whole sequence is peppered with moments like this and depending on the viewers perception they will have a different gut feeling in response to them.”

“When we thought of vampire representations, we also thought of nature as a predator, as a supernatural force, and as a parasite. Throughout the piece we speed ramped clouds to unnatural tempos, studied decaying animals, spliced in carnivorous plants, and even included prehistoric swamp creatures (the opening shot is of an animal called a mud dog or 'hell bender').”

What inspired the look and feel?
Mulder: “We decided early on, based on the exploratory work of designer Rama Allen and editor Shawn Fedorchuk, that a docu-style assemblage of footage would give us the rawness and impact we were after. Also it allowed us to treat the edit as more of a gumbo than a fine dining experience to heighten the immediacy of the sequence. Core influences for us were the writings of Harry Crews, the wonderfully powerful documentary 'In Search of The Wrong Eyed Jesus,' Roadhouse cinema by the likes of Lynch and Glaser, and a touch of Chris Cunningham influenced the edits of bodies intertwined either in pleasure or in pain.”

The footage seems to come from different sources. Was the documentary-style footage  shot specially for the opening sequence?
Mulder: “We shot almost everything you see ourselves, the exception being some of the wildlife footage. Everything else we shot on location in Louisiana during (4 day road trip in an RV), at a church in Chicago, in a dive bar in Seattle, and a stage also in Seattle.”

Could you say something about the editing process? About the 'subliminal' footage of bodies intertwining, and the slow motion versus speeded up images.
Mulder: “Shawn Fedorchuk knew he wanted the edit to rumble through the swamps, wilderness and cultures of the south to eventually reach into the hearts and minds of it inhabitants. This voyeuristic look into the psychological landscape of the story of True Blood would allow its viewers to see a patchwork quilt of images stitched together by the fervor of religious fanaticism and repressed sexual energy. Eventually boiling over into an animalistic lust, our “human” elements take on beast-like qualities invoking the shows supernatural themes.”

“To create this rumbling edit, Shawn would cut the footage of humans, animals and insects into tiny slivers, dropping out frames so their movements felt jittery, jarring and beyond their conscious control. He wanted the actual cuts in the edit to create a seething feeling intended to be a paradoxical state of simultaneous rotting and rabid breeding. By colliding quick jerking movements with smoother slower ones, he would create a beautiful kind of lunging staccato effect. On top of this he would spatter nearly subliminal frames of blood drops throughout the edit as a visceral reminder of the show’s foundation.”

Could you say something about the type design and type treatment and about the True Blood title that's revealed at the end?
Mulder: 'True' was inspired by handmade lettering that you would see on a roadside in the rural south... specifically, crude makeshift signage. These "naive" letterforms have an unrefined style reflective of the culture we wanted to unearth - much like a local dialect. Camm Rowland, the type designer, looked at a lot of post-Katrina signage as well. It had a sense of urgency and honesty that made it compelling... but the element of simultaneous anger and fear is what made it feel especially connected to the story of True Blood.”

“Camm made the type by hand with simple tools and scanned them in to create the True family of fonts... 8 in all. He ended up using "True Gothic" and "True Blade" for the show, both of which have 2 weights and alternate characters for each letter... helping it to retain the nuanced variations and flaws that make vernacular typography so beautiful.”

“Ryan Gagnier developed a great treatment for the final logo reveal - a sort of pulsing, skin-peeling, visceral experience. He approached it with the same kind of crude, DIY attitude as Camm took with the type design so it compliments the both the content and the type very well.”

DIGITAL KITCHEN

About this interview:
For the record: At Forget the Film, Watch the Titles, we're dedicated to bringing you original content only. We do not copy interviews from other websites, and if we quote, we always list the source. In the case of this interview, we sent our questions over to Digital Kitchen November last year. The answers came in on December. DK preferred we wait with this publication till the launch of our new website, which took a bit longer than expected. In the meantime, parts of this interview appeared on Creative League, aswell as some other websites. Recycling interviews seems to be the order of the day. The answers of DK's creative team are however fascinating and insightful, so we decided to publish it anway.

Digital Kitchen (DK) is a creative agency that focuses on film production, experiential design, motion graphics, brand identity, and interactive work for marketing and entertainment. DK has offices in Seattle, Chicago, New York and L.A.

DK has created several highly interesting title sequences for television shows. Most notably: Dexter (watch at Art of the Title), The Company, Nip Tuck, Six Feet Under (watch at Art of the Title), The Grid and True Blood.

more about Digital Kitchen

Full credits

Creative directors
Matt Mulder, Rama Allen

Live Action Direction
Rama Allen, Morgan Henry, Matthew Mulder, Matt Clark, Trevor Fife

Designers
Rama Allen, Shawn Fedorchuck, Ryan Gagnier, Matthew Mulder, Camm Rowland, Ryan Rothermel

Compositor
Ryan Gagnier

Editor
Shawn Fedorchuck

Producers
Morgan Henry, Kipp Christiansen, Keir Moreano

Executive Creative Director
Paul Mattheaus

Executive Producer
Mark Bashore.

Production company (titles)
Digital Kitchen

Client
HBO

Links

comment on this title

Comments (6):

23 Apr 09 • by: Vincent

Cool Title,
only a bit freaky :p

19 May 09 • by: Adrian Sanoguel

Very awesome piece!

1 Jun 09 • by: Svenja

awesome title design for a stunning series! Was immediately caught by the rhythm of the title and love the reveal of True Blood in the end!

23 Jun 09 • by: Martin Cox

I love the color correction. Excellent job.

6 Jul 09 • by: joshua arceneaux

I've been hooked on True Blood since it began - c'est la louisianne vrairmente! However, I was hoping that the production staff would kindly consider to include the southern louisiana parishes, culture, and people in this thrilling series, because this is where louisiana vampirism really started.

5 Feb 10 • by: Jurgen

Think this is one of the best titles I've ever seen. I downloaded on the website and it inspires me in my own work. Thanx for that!

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