We have had the pleasure of working on a wide variety of projects. Some of our clients and places you have seen our work include NBC, ABC, HBO, PBS, UPN, Fox, PAX, The Learning Channel, Recovery Network, Propaganda Films, New Line, Iwerks, Disney, Xerox, Apple Computer, Microsoft, Sun, Scitex, Clarion, and Isuzu.

This page is dedicated to our film and broadcast work; click here to see examples of our corporate and special venue work.

One of our main areas of work is opening titles for television and film. Shows include The Greatest (TLC), plus several in conjunction with Deborah Ross Film Design, including Girlfriends (UPN), Nothing Sacred (ABC), and Five American Handguns/Five American Kids (HBO). In film work, we animated and composited one of the first major studio film opening titles to be done on desktop-level computer workstations (S.F.W.), as well as the opening titles for Now and Then, Almost Heroes, Letters From a Killer, The Omega Code, The Talented Mr. Ripley, and The Weight of Water, the opening and closing titles for Cold Mountain, plus the closing credits for Out to Sea.

Below are a few examples of our work. We would be interested in talking to you about your next graphics job - call 818/990-5591 or email Trish.

Something New

This romantic comedy from first-time director Sanaa Hamri is an interesting take on race relations when a successful black businesswoman falls in love with her white landscaper. The movie begins with a dream sequence where the woman Kenya dreams of the perfect wedding – which is then rudely interrupted by warning sirens (her alarm clock going off, on Valentine’s Day). Working in collaboration with Deborah Ross Film Design, we animated the characters of the main title in Adobe After Effects to mimic the petals of the flowers being strewn at the imaginary wedding, as well as fun color treatments of the other main credits. Click image to play; 3.1 MB download.

Millionaire

The LePrevost Corporation was responsible for the redesign of Who Wants to be a Millionaire in 2005, including a new opening title (shown here), lower thirds, transitions, promos, and other elements. They brought in CyberMotion to be the technical producer on the job. In addition to performing final polish and clean-up on the spots, it was our task to ensure that every one of the nearly 100 elements (including mattes and variations) were delivered on time, in the formats needed.

Cold Mountain

Nominated for numerous Academy Awards, this major movie starring Jude Law, Nicole Kidman, and Renée Zellweger is set at the dawn of the Civil War. The titles emerge elegantly from the slow-moving water (licensed from the Artbeats film library), while a hint of Cold Mountain appears and disappears. Click on the image to view the opening title; we also composited over two minutes of closing credits in a similar style that flowed from the last scene into clouds (also from Artbeats) and the same haunting water. Directed by Anthony Minghella. Edited by Walter Murch (using Apple's Final Cut Pro). Title Designer: Deborah Ross Film Design. Realized in Adobe After Effects. Click image to play; 2.9MB download.

The Weight of Water

This independent movie starring Sean Penn and Elizabeth Hurley explores what happens to a small town when someone digs into a drowning that happened over 100 years ago. The opening title has multiple layers of water elements mixed in throughout as we explore some of the clues and past evidence; even the words dissipate on the water as they dissolve away. Click on the image above to view a section of the opening. Title Designer: Deborah Ross Film Design. Realized in Adobe After Effects. Click image to play; 1MB download.

The Talented Mr. Ripley

We are very proud to have animated and composited the opening title sequence for this excellent movie by Oscar winning director/screenwriter Anthony Minghella. Conceived by Deborah Ross Film Design, the titles recall the look of the Blue Note jazz album covers of the 50s and 60s. In a nod to Saul Bass (the famous title designer behind many of Alfred Hitchcock's movies), transitions between the flashback scenes include animated shapes that at times resemble piano keys; at other times, shards of glass or knives. Technically, the entire eight minute sequence was kept inside the Cineon color space, consuming well over 200 gigabytes of disk space. We believe it is the longest title sequence created to date using desktop computers. All compositing was performed inside Adobe After Effects. Click image to play; 500K download.

The Omega Code

The premise of this film was that the future could be told by decoding certain passages of the bible - if you only knew the code. What if this code fell in the wrong hands? And what if the code was incomplete? For the opening titles, we created a virtual data cube of Hebrew and English scrambling and resolving into key words, that was turned over in space as one searched for the key. We also animated several of the opening credits, unscrambling them in pieces from Hebrew to English. Animated and realized for Manna-Design using ElectricImage; final compositing performed in Adobe After Effects. Additional technical information on its creation can be found at Triple D Tools. Click image to play; 3MB download.

UPN: Girlfriends

The opening title sequence of this series on UPN (in season one) took a fresh approach, combining a travelogue of Los Angeles with a print fashion spread collage brought to life, exploring the many different facets of Los Angeles as we move from morning to night. The talent was shot on film in front of a greenscreen; all but two of the LA shots originated on DVcam; all were blended together in After Effects using tricks we've developed in house to add a hot, saturated, glowing look to the imagery. Click on the image above to view the final title (1.4 Meg download). Title Designer: Deborah Ross Film Design. Click image to play; 4MB download.

PAX: Primetime Promo

In this redesign of PAXTV's on-air look, the primetime promotional end caps are filled with light and translucent shapes. The basis for the animation was a series of R&D experiments with auto-animating shards of virtual glass, hit from a number angles with different-colored lights. Different colored light rays were also added, overlapping to create a prismatic effect. Click on the image to the right to see the animation in action (900k download). The elements were rendered individually in Electric Image, and combined in After Effects. Design Firm: Leprevost Corporation; Creative Director: John Leprevost; Art Director/Designer: Wendy Vanguard of Manna-Design. (Click image to play; 1MB download)

Fox: Simptopia

Remember the Fruitopia new-age beverage ads of a few years ago, with kaleidoscopes of fruit splashing through water? Fox and Beantown Productions approached us to parody this concept with the stars and their icons from The Simpsons. We captured over 100 selects from various shows, rotoscoped out animated bits of the characters, and re-animated them in a variety of kaleidoscopic patterns. Siskel and Ebert gave it two thumbs up at the 1997 ProMax convention, and then proceeded to call it utterly original - which apparently triggered much debate from the audience. For the record, we single-framed through the original ads (with Fruitopia's permission), making sure we properly captured their spirit in our parody. Realized in After Effects. Click image to play; 4MB download.

TLC: The Greatest

We created this opening title animation for a Learning Channel series on the greatest people and achievements in various areas of endeavor. The camera move swirls around and "climbs" a glass structure festooned with video monitors showing these achievements; the payoff at the summit is the show's name. Most of it was created in 3D in Electric Image, with additional compositing and color correction in After Effects. Click image to play; 3MB download.

Recovery Network: Testimony

We were hired to do some of the initial on-air design for The Recovery Network, including opening sequences for several of their programs. One example is Testimony, where an individual recalls their own personal struggle with some form of addiction or related behavior. CyberMotion co-founder Trish Meyer’s background is in typography, which she employed to great extend in this opening title sequence showing the many different forms of addiction and emotions a person may encounter in their life. The negative words are in black, while the positive words are in white. The background is textured paper, enhancing the personal writings or confessions mood of the piece; the text itself moves on multiple planes and is visible just through imaginary windows, showing how we try to keep all these problems and emotions inside. Executed inside Adobe After Effects. (No movie.)

Please click here to view additional projects we have worked on, focusing on corporate and special venue work.