The Detectives — Alexandra Fernholz Design

The Detectives is a title sequence for a true crime thriller which I designed, produced, and filmed for a motion design class.

The Plot:

Vincent K. Lewis, eccentric tech mogul, is dead. 47 years old with a knife through his heart, newly murdered in his Chicago mansion, and the police are stumped. Desperate for help in a case growing bigger and more high profile each day, they bring in a team with a very specific set of skills: solving unsolvable murders.

At first, the case seems to be progressing quickly, with several promising leads, but junior secretary Julie Dawes quickly notices something seems to be off with the team of detectives. Facts of the case don’t seem to be adding up, but the police are more than relieved to get the case closed and over with. Frustrated, Dawes does her own digging, only to find out more about the detectives than she may have bargained for.

The detectives are ‘solving’ their own murders. But are they really the true criminals?

This show is called The Detectives.

The Plan:

Footage will feature objects pertaining to the story. It will be foggy, then sharpen into frame. Each object will pertain to something the character shown is lying about.

Shots are moody and cut in unexpected places to make the user uncomfortable and uneasy.

Typography will be organic, even handwritten, yet sharp in places. However it will not be overtly agressive.

Storyboarding:

Originally, I planned to film the sequence in black and white with red callouts. However, I decided early on that this was too clichéd .

Motion Test:

Before I began filming in earnest, I conducted a motion test.

Please note: all sequences filmed with fire were done so with a bucket of water & fire extinguisher on hand.

Editing:

I struggled to decide how to present names and titles. I knew I wanted the text to be organic, and still uniform. However, it was hard to distinguish the names of the cast vs. the names of the crew.

Initially, everything had been a mixture of handwriting and typography. After several false starts, I created digital drawings of all the names of the cast to give them their own style and texture, and left the names of the crew to be typed.