The Pacic: Main Title

Imaginary Forces for HBO

9.8.2013 | D. Millard

1. Overview

Overview Information What is it? Who Made it? When? Why do I love it?
A show on HBO that tells the story of American Naval soldiers in WWII ghting in the Pacic against the Japanese.

Steven Fuller (Designer, Illustrator, Art Director), Peter Frankfurt (Art Director), Ahmet Ahmet (Art Director), Cara McKenney (Producer), Arisu Kashiwagi (Producer), Chris Pickenpaugh (Animator) March 14, 2010, won an Emmy in 2010

Its dignied, showing the price of war in a limited way. It stays beautifully simple and at the same time expansive and descriptive. It tastefully describes the casualties of war. The transition from the drawings to lm frames of the soldiers seems to bring them to life with storytelling. Almost as if pulling them out of history. I love the additional use of chalk and its asthetic to symbolize explosions. It helps the piece to ow and gives that needed grittiness that represents warfare.

2. Form

Form: Board

Form: Execution What does it look like?

The piece uses a collage of 2 dimensional drawings and photographic media to create a nostalgic effect on scenes of soldiers landing on beaches or crawling through elds. The gritty chalk that is pulled along a piece of paper reminds you of a strategy room planning the next attack and pushing the troops toward the end goal causing mess and disarray that is unavoidable. The grayscale color pallete reminds one of black and white photos of loved ones that are kept in the soldiers helmets. The chalk asthetic is reused when sudden sprays of black spread across the frame like soil unheaveled by land mines. Red is occationally used as a point of focus, the sun in the sky beating down or maybe representing the Empire Sun of the Japanese ag.

What does it move like?

The pace is gradual, allowing you to take in scene of blackness exploding or understand the symbolic nature of otherwise meaningless objects. Scenes of the drawing charcoal seam to move smoother. Meanwhile shots of soldiers has a glitched imperfect movement as if it were taken with an old lm camera. The trasition from smooth movement to glitchy movement seems to represent a ashback. Going between the created story and the imperfect memory that resonates from it.

What does it sound like?

The music is composed by Hans Zimmer. There is a constant string section that plays through out and crescendos to create underline the emotional signicance of visuals. The percussion section enters in for scene changes. Horns are occasionally added for important scene changes. The music creates a heirarchy in the timeline to help the veiwer focus on specic parts, such as when signicant characters come into the credits.

Form: Inspiration

Form: Edit

3. Content

Content: Concept Keywords

sacrice chaos goal heroism loss sorrow drawing trials brotherhood machines guns bombs planes tactics hopeless survival grit hardening glory tradgety remember battleeld journey change

Theme Thesis

Remember
The combination of emotional heirarchy, simple motif recycled in metaphors, and reduced color pallete creates a piece that remembers individuals who are lost in war.

3. Content + Form

Form + Content Imagery

Its a mixture of imagery and illustration drawn on transparent paper. The photographic scene are given an antique look and are usually have a darker contrast. Both the illustrative scene and photographic scenes are given an surreal affect by the use of black and red.

Edit

The pace of the edit is gradual with the occasional brief blitz like scene. Most scenes last around 6 to 10 seconds excluding the closing scene which lasts 18 seconds.

Animation

Illustrative shots are animated in a smooth and gradual way and then quickly fade into photorealistic shots with are animated in a glitzy hand-done style. The camera is usually set up intimately close to the subject.