The ever-suave cat, that eternal prankster in princely pink has not lost his nerve or his panache in 2009. Once more he takes on his beloved role as the stylish and distinct tormentor of Inspector Clouseau for the title sequence of The Pink Panther 2, directed by Karin Fong of Imaginary Forces.

We're ever so happy that this second American installment in the Pink Panther movie franchize sticks with the tradition of having an elaborate animated title sequence. As the respected movie critic Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times put it: “I was smiling all the way through the opening credits of The Pink Panther 2. They made me miss the golden age of credits, when you actually found out who the actors were going to be, and maybe saw a little cartoon in the bargain.”

The honor to revive and, apparently, update the character “for today's audiences” went to veteran main title designer Karin Fong of Imaginary Forces. We interviewed her on camera in May 2009, after her presentation at the Flux/Watch the Titles event at the Hammer Museum in L.A, where she, among other things, talked about designing The Pink Panther 2 title sequence.

See the complete video interview with Karin Fong here.

Karin Fong: “An influential main title for me was the original Pink Panther cartoon, because it really played a lot with the typography in a very cartoony way. I am a huge fan of things like Sesame Street and Schoolhouse Rock... Some people would say 'cartoon style,' but it's really quite clever how you work in the word play and visual puns. That always struck me as a very imaginative main title ... It departed from the look of the movie, which is live action, yet became a signature for the film.”

“Of course they've been making an animated Pink Panther title for each of the movies over the years. Over time you can see differences in animation style - the characters have changed a little from the early 1960s till now. You have to remain true to the Panther character – that sense of mischief, yet being a really cool cat. This movie takes place in the present day and it's very important to connect it to the present day. It's about capturing that spirit of the Panther, the kind of jokes he would play on the inspector, the kind of antics they would have. But yet giving it the backgrounds, the sceneries, the effects that would update it for todays audiences.”

See also: The Pink Panther (2006), directed by Bob Kurtz.

Karin Fong is a director and designer based in New York City. A native Californian, Fong  studied Art at Yale, with a concentration in Graphic Design. After successfully creating an animated alphabet book for her senior project, she began her career as an animator on the WGBH television program 'Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?' From that point forward, Karin was hooked on creating work that combines live action, design, and animation.

more about Karin Fong

Full credits

Title director
Karin Fong/Imaginary Forces

Film director
Harald Zwart

animator
Aimee Major     

Production company
MGM, Columbia Pictures

Pink Panther theme
Henry Mancini

Links

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Comments (2):

29 Mar 10 • by: BAHAR

What I like about the title sequences is that THE PINK PANTHER is mainly about solving the unknown mystery. I really like how they have used a cartoon detective to search around with his personal equipments to collect clues that he has found. By placing the title sequences as an individual clue I think is rather appealing and very effective.

The pink panther dancing around in a pink diamond and then stealing the diamond behind the detectives back helps the viewers distinguish between the good character and bad. Every scene is cleverly put together and well planned out. The pink panther running away from the detective helps us unlocked what he is searching for. With the title sequences fonts and styles varying into different forms aims to suit the different individual scenes. Mainly classic, bold, easy to read fonts have been used.

What I don’t like about the title sequence is that they could have used different bright coloured fonts for the title sequences, for example the colour pink to help equal up with the pink panther.

The music that has been used in the pink panther is very effective and is very catchy and suits the theme really well. The music adds excitement and thrill to the theme. It makes the viewers feel a certain way, has also captured the spirit of the panther.

We could all see there isn’t much difference between today’s character pink panther and back then. There has been a bit of changes in the imagery but they have updated the character pink panther to suit today’s audiences. I believe overall it would have been a challenge for everyone to turn the story into something new by reinventing it. I think they have created and designed an outstanding title sequence, from start to the end everything is well thought out and created in a way to draw the viewers attention.

28 Jun 10 • by: sebastian

don't forget the pp title sequence by kuntzel and deygas it's much better :
http://www.addadog.com/v3/fiche.php?id=51&categorie=&reference=&motcle=pink

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