The Designer Behind the Chaos

The Designer Desiner Behind Behide the Chaos

By Edward J. Dechaine

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Title Designer Born on Friday July 13, 1962 in Salem, Mass

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Text Can Kill!

(1995)

K

yle Cooper uses typography in his title sequences to build up drama. He’ll use the text to enhance the mood he’s trying to highlight. In the title sequence for the movie Seven, he uses the text to look like white scratches that would appear on a roll of film. Not only do we see actual scratches on the film, but these scratches would spell out people’s names and then become fuzzy. The text does not just sit on the roll of film, the font is actually interacting with the footage.

He is creating an illusion that the marks were already there. The damage on the film gives the image that the text actually is scratches on the film.

There are even scenes where the scratches on film are what the hands are writing down for only a few frames. Kinda makes you wonder, if I didn’t

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understand the shapes as letters, would I read them as just scratches on film? You don’t need to understand language to understand the title sequence.

The text shakes on the screen with the hands interacting with the objects, such as the pen, notebook and blades.

This only adds to the uncomfortable feelings from the scenes. Just seeing shakiness with a blade in a scene makes me feel very nervous, because the two don’t really go together well.

A single frame of the scratshes of rambling shown on screen.

The shaking blade secene.

Theses two photo show how Cooper made just crossing out faces on paper so unsettling.

Agian will see rambling in the screen of the scene has the hands just write.

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Godzilla (2014)

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ne of Kyle Cooper’s inspirations is Saul Bass. A difference I noticed between the two is that Cooper’s texts tend to be more interactive with the footage than those used by Bass. Bass also seems to have a pattern or formula in place in order to make his title sequences. While Copper prefers to reinvent the wheel, especially in his later works when the technology would allow him to experiment. In Godzilla, the opening credits are made to look like top secret files with white out.

The Incredible Hulk (2008)

Kyle Cooper

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Student and Master

How to Kill a Mokingbird (1962)

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ass also creates discomfort with the use of imagery and sounds. This was evident when watching the title sequence to the movie, To Kill a Mockingbird(1962).

The title sequence in To Kill a Mockingbird also gives the audience an uneasy feeling. believe me you need to see the opening sequence.

The sequence uses simple white texts that just sit on top of the film’s footage.

The texts are also just sliding across the screen with a basic fade. Bass tends to use a font that is very familiar, bland, or basic so it is easy for him to change the mood. In some cases, such as Psycho(1960), the title sequence is being cut up and being reformed into other words. Cooper appears to replicate Bass’s To Kill a Mockingbird with his sequence for Immortal Beloved(1994).

Bass invented the title sequence as we know it.

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Cooper’s Started his own company in 2003

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ooper has his own company called Prologue.

Cooper is very adamant on what he wants. He is very much a perfectionist and has a history of dropping out of projects if people wish to make changes to his work.

He has a never compromise policy and has a reputation of being headstrong because he believes that he alone can truly bring out his vision for the movies he works with.

“I’m not sure Prologue will take the design world by storm, but I know it will never do anything that I do not think is perfect. I will never compromise again.”

Prologue Headquarters

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For Cooper, it is his way, or no way. Cooper has very high standards. He tends to only employ about 8 full time designers with a couple of freelancers that work for his company. Cooper’s company will only work on a few projects at a time to insure quality over quantity.

Cooper’s work varies from sequence to sequence. You’ll never see him use the same text in another project.

One of the reasons he likes having full control over the projects is so he doesn’t have a recurring style or stereotype. Every movie wants to stand out, so why

would you use the same thing twice? All projects have to be finalized by him before being released for use in the film. He has made titles for more than 150 films, many of which are action packed or thrillers. He has done even a few video games.

Notable Team members Rachel Fowler

Kurt Mattila

Ana Criado Zahonero

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Lets Talk Business

It seemed as a kid Kyle Cooper loved to draw monsters according to his family. Can you tell?

American Horror Story: Freak Show (2014)

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Kyle Cooper has worked on over 150 projects Seven (1995) Kong: Skull Island (2017) Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) The Losers (2010) Iron Man (2008) Iron Man 2 (2010) Iron Man 3 (2013) Avengers (1998) Mummy (1999) Sider-Man (2002) Sider-Man 2 (2004) Sider-Man 3 (2007) Flubber (1997) Volcano (1997) Twister (1996)

Godzilla (2014) The Incredible Hulk (2008) Thor (2011) The Fan (1996) Feud (2017) Pixels (2015) Teenage Mutant ninga Turtles (2014) The Thing (2011) Tron: Legacy (2010) X-Men: First Class(2011) X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) X-Men: Apocalybes (2016) Beauty And The Beast (2017) Just to name a few

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Bibliography Roux, Julie Prendiville.

“Prologue.” Communication Arts. Last modified June 19, 2014. Accessed April 11, 2019. https://www.commarts. com/features/prologue.

Gibson, Jon M. “The Dark Genius of Kyle Cooper.”

Wired. Last modified June 22, 2018. Accessed April 11, 2019. https://www.wired. com/2004/06/cooper/.

“Kyle Cooper.” Art of the Title. Accessed April 11, 2019. https://www.artofthetitle. com/designer/kyle-cooper.

“Kyle Cooper.” We Love Your Names. Accessed April 11, 2019. http://weloveyournames. com/us/kyle-cooper.

Radatz, Ben, and Lola Landekic. “Se7en.” Art of the Title. Accessed April 11, 2019. https://www.artofthetitle. com/title/se7en/.

Designed and written by Edward Dechaine Composed in Lucida Console and Typeka Printed from a Kyocera color laserject printer onto 60# Hammermill ASK PAPER Copyright © 2019 Edward Dechaine; Portland, Maine, Maine College of Art