Plains Of Yonder directors Katrina Crawford and Mark Bashore (whose work we track here), reteam with the CG talents at Makmac in Barcelona for a sculptural mix of emotion and typography in their titles for the Netflix series Sirens.

Katrina Crawford and Mark Bashore: “The idea of entrapment and power was a central concept of both the Sirens show and the titles; a world where women are haunted by patterns of a patriarchy that confine their lives. It’s all a game of impossible choices and facades and the very high cost of social ascent.

“We were after a sequence that was sculptural and dimensional, but did not animate or come to life in any way. The richness of the 3D modeling with moving light and interesting camera angles seemed like it created more than enough interest. There is something emotionally powerful about sculptures that feels timeless and haunting, especially in the faces.
 

“We were after a sequence that was sculptural and dimensional, but did not animate or come to life in any way. The richness of the 3D modeling with moving light and interesting camera angles seemed like it created more than enough interest.”

 
“We began the process with pencil and paper, illustrating the sculpted typeface, integrated bodies, the gestures and faces, and postures of feet, hands, and hair. The 3D team at Makmac launched into building the sculptures from those illustrations.

“The 3D team also experimented long and hard with the surface and texture, color, and light quality. We were after a realistic ‘aged, carved stone’ look, that had a bit of reflective quality that comes with age.

“We found that in sculpted stone, small crevices would emit a white calcium-like deposit over time. You can see that in the crevices in many shots (eyelids, fingernails etc). These white flecks are counter-intuitive to ‘dirt’ or darkness that would be tempting to add to show aging across time.

“The sculptures were modeled with ZBrush. Animation and lighting was done in Cinema 4D and rendered with Redshift. Textures created in Adobe Photoshop. Adobe After effects for some additional post production. Color grading and final output with DaVinci Resolve Studio. This edit contains all the episodic imagery, and additional imagery as well.”
 
 

 

 
Client: Netflix, LuckyChap Entertainment
Creator/Showrunner: Molly Smith Metzler

Studio: Plains Of Yonder
Director: Katrina Crawford, Mark Bashore
EP: Paul Williamson
Model illustrator: Torin Bashore
Editor: Mark Bashore
Color Grade: Jeremy Stuart

3D Production: Makmac
Lead 3D Artist: Mauro Gimferrer, Marcos Coral
3D Artist: Marcos Coral, Mauro Gimferrer, Thais Altés
3D Modeler: Arturo Gulín Fernández, Aser Godoy, Iván Torres

Music: Madalen Duke “This Is How Villains Are Made”