Rushes Creates Title Sequence For ITV1's 'Demons'

Rushes has recently completed work for the opening titles and logo of ITV1's latest drama 'Demons', a modern-day take on the mythology surrounding Dracula and the Van Helsing family, starring Phil Glenister, Mackenzie Crook and Christian Cooke.
Matt Curtis of AP Design was asked by Shine Productions to create the opening titles for the new six-part series for ITV1 and ad-break bumpers including a section of the animation with the Demons logo.
Working closely to the storyboards created by Matt Curtis, Matt Lawrence, Head of Motion Graphics at Rushes, using After Effects, created the opening city scene from photographs taken by Jonathan Privett, Head of 3D at Rushes. The photographs were then split into planes to create depth and lights were animated to keep the scene 'alive', this was then matched to the Maya camera move.
In the series, the vampires live in the sewers of London and the title sequence was to reflect the journey a vampire would take as they fly into the City and into their underground tunnel system. Cinema 4D was used to model a foreground crane in the opening scene and also to create the Demons logo. The titles were then animated in both Shake and After Effects and comped by Seb Barker at Rushes.
The second sequence is entirely CG, starting with a dramatic drop past an east city skyscraper, which was constructed and animated in Maya. After creating and approving an animatic that outlined the camera's path and timing, work could commence on constructing the vast crypt like sewer system surrounding it.
Barker commented: "With a limited time frame every step had to be carefully planned in order to make the most of the little we had. Renderman was used for the shading and rendering phase, this made it possible to reach a far higher level of polish and realism otherwise obtainable."
Final renders were eventually split into many passes then composited in Shake allowing for otherwise time consuming 3D adjustments to be made quickly and efficiently in 2D.
'Demons', which aired its first episode on January 3, can be viewed on ITV1 on Saturdays at 7:45pm.
(KMcA)(BMcC)