We open on a sea of lights, it’s LA, but something is different. This is the town as seen through John’s eyes—an impression of streets and neighborhoods that define the city. 

As the sequence unfolds we follow Sugar as he makes his way through the landscape, always moving, searching. Like a dream (or a memory) the visuals slowly morph and shift to reveal new locations, long shadows shift the scenes from day to night.

Throughout these environs John is haunted by the missing people he is hired to find, they appear as faceless portraits set within the environment. The more he searches the more obscure they become, shifting and distorting to make up the shadows that define John’s world.

The scenes were crafted in 3D using C4D or using stock footage, and a specialized plugin was used to create the painterly appearance, allowing us precise control over brush size, stroke thickness, direction, etc. Each scene underwent multiple iterations, including passes for fine detail, airbrushed effects, mid strokes, and broad strokes. We then carefully applied and animated masks to dictate areas of visual emphasis, focus, and movement. The jittering between every frame was done intentionally to replicate a stop-motion effect as if every frame was traditionally painted. The frenetic paint strokes can represent the bustling landscape of a modern city full of energy and activity, yet the scenery is nearly devoid of life and people — with the exception of Sugar and obscured figures on billboards and photographs. 

Regarding the transitions, we paid close attention to ensure they felt seamless and deliberate. Instead of opting for a basic crossfade, which could risk looking cheap and lazy, we chose a method that involved merging the two shots organically. By having the paint strokes blend, morph, and follow the shapes within both images, we achieved a cohesive transition where the highlights preceded the shadows, creating a more visually striking effect.

Generative AI was not used in the making of this main title.

Drawing inspiration from Edward Hopper's "Nighthawks," we chose a painterly aesthetic to convey the surreal ambiance, influenced by the painting's exploration of themes like loneliness, isolation, and urban desolation, and how it's an apt amalgamation of the mundane and often overlooked sites that make up a modern city. 

We were also inspired by a lot of city and street photography with long dramatic shadows,  which we used in our mood board to reference for the neo-noir aesthetic. Yet rather than the dark, rainy, and grungy neo-noir representations that's very New York, we chose bright, sunny, and colorful to represent Los Angeles.