When Hazel Baird invited me to direct one of the title sequences for American Horror Stories, I was an instant yes. I’ve long admired Hazel’s work, particularly the stunning variety of sequences they had already established for Ryan Murphy’s AHS horror universe. The brief was scary open – the one rule was the title had to align with the script while being stand alone enough as to not give anything away.
Designing the boards was an instinct driven process. The guiding question being, "does this make me feel uncomfortable?" Searing neon orange light, shadowed negative space and the right balance of grime created the glue to make the sequence cohere.
I was fortunate to build a dream animation team in Taylor, Steve and Bruno. Their technical wizardry and keen sense of timing pushed each frame to its creepiest potential. A big challenge was creating and finding performance – especially from sliced and diced stock footage. We bounced in and out of After Effects and Cinema4D and translated some extremely complex color correction and composting in 32bit. To get satisfying moments of sync with the score, we honed the edit directly in the animation, sprinkling in micro cuts: subtle details that you feel, but may not register.
Thanks for the AE BTS gifs, Steve!
