How We Did It: SNL Title Sequence | Hacker News Reader

How We Did It: SNL Title Sequence

alex-buono.com

470 pointsshakes56 comments

This is incredible. Normally just one or two of these techniques would represent a pretty impressive feat. This used 3d printing, freelensing, pixelstick lightwriting, and a custom bokeh cutout -- in addition to the cool, but more common helicopter shots, timelapse, tilt-shift, and steady cam work.

Being willing to (or maybe having the budget to) use all these techniques AND getting a consistent result is SUPER impressive.

> cool, but more common helicopter shots,

I'm glad they pointed out that a similar shot could have been done via drone. I've been told that drones have made cool aerial sequences available to directors who don't have the budget of SNL's 40th though I'd be interested in learning more.

My company uses a drone to "scope" land before we build. My first reaction to seeing the video is that we wasted money on a helicopter ride for a 30 sec clip.

A DJI Phantom 2 with the Zenmuse H3-3D and a GoPro 3+ or 4 can take amazingly smooth and high quality footage (example - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRC-8pCCCys ). There are also drones that can fly with DSLRs.

He mentioned this in the article: "There are a lot of ways to shoot aerial footage these days; we could fly a DJI Phantom with a GoPro, mount a Dragon to a Freefly Cinestar drone, handhold a MoVI out an open chopper door…or we could just hire the best aerial pilot in New York – Al Cerullo – which is what we did."

Photographers were using RC helicopters long before multicopter thingies that people like to call drones for some reason became trendy. These are still around and they have the lift capacity to hoist your 5D or your Red Epic on a pan/tilt rig, unlike most multicopters that can hardly lift a go pro.

That's the issue, this equipment is heavy!

Sure, digital is usually "lighter" but get a DSLR in your hands and you see that even that is not something any drone can carry

Commercial use of drones is generally illegal. If you want to use it for TV or film production, you have to contract with one of six FAA blessed companies. http://www.faa.gov/news/press_releases/news_story.cfm?newsId...

The MPAA is actually doing a lot of good work to help free up restrictive laws on drone use.

OK Go's "I Won't Let You Go" was filmed entirely using a drone. And as they are wont to do, as a single take.

Thanks for the hint, eventually i stumbled upon the note about Pixelstick in the article, never heard of it before. They had a successful Kickstarter last year, the video briefly introduces the tech and shows many more applications: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bitbangerlabs/pixelstic... Now I want one!

If you think this is interesting, there's an entire site dedicated to title sequences in film and television:

http://www.artofthetitle.com/titles/

Thanks for this.

Lots of great sequences from the 80s presented there along with on my of my all-time favorite openings - Ghost in the Shell [0].

I've always felt failing to put together a compelling opening is a missed opportunity, particularly for a series. It's a hook, a primer to put the audience in mind of the best eras and episodes every time.

0: http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/ghost-in-the-shell/

Awesome! Gonna spend a weekend on this.

And an easy way to share my personal all-time favorite title sequence, Delicatessen:

http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/delicatessen/

I have to link to North by Northwest. Just incredible when you consider it was done in 1959.

http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/north-by-northwest/

As someone who enjoys both programming and video production, this is great to see on HN. In my experience, there is a lot of overlap between both skillsets. As the article makes clear, a lot of time goes into finding cool "hacks" to trick the lens into conveying a particular look via lighting, optical effects and more.

Post-production is also a very technical process that takes a lot of time and effort to get right and involves exploring the particular quirks of your editing software and tricking it to get it to do what you want. There are often little moments of discovery where you do something you weren't even sure was possible. Then there are those serendipitous moments where visuals and audio come together better than you were anticipating or could have ever planned. It's a great feeling.

I encourage any programmers out there who have even a modicum of interest in the subject to go out there and experiment. Video production can be a great creative outlet that uses a lot of the same talents and opens up new artistic pathways.

This is a fantastic blog post. I love that we can get this behind-the-scenes look behind something so iconic.

The light painting and lens-whacking details were awesome to read about. I'll definitely have to give the lens whacking a try.

I got one of these as a gift a while back - lets you experiment with the 'moving lens' technique without as much potential for sensor damage:

http://lensbaby.com/lenses-spark

I love my Lensbaby (an older one), but the effect is a bit different. There is no light leakage behind the lens like there'd be with freelensing. You sometimes get fun and weird artifacts from light sources just outside the frame, but a subtle streak over the image where light enters the camera behind the hand-held lens ... not so much.

Both interesting effects, though.

Uh oh, Wordpress problems.

Cached: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:2Z0Puiw...

Is it just me or is stuff like this way harder to appreciate these days (with the ubiquity of CGI), unless you work in the industry, or see a behind-the-scenes look like this?

This is simply incredible, and yet I don't normally pay the title sequence any attention at all...

How many shows have opening credits this long anymore?

You have some shows, like The Good Wife, that use a five-second title card.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rOhzdWZS7E

Some have more elaborate titles, but still only go 15 seconds (e.g. The Mindy Project)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HarfyFwRfhA

Compare with an 80's show like Dallas, where the credits went a whole 1:10! That's like lost real estate for two or three commercials!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iYjgMygIag

And Twin Peaks, which went 2:36:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2lkvrMa27c

Cable shows still have long title sequences. For instance, most of HBO shows.

Which confirms why broadcast shows scrapped longer titles in favor of cramming in another commercial or two, I suppose.

...then there's Too Many Cooks: https://www.youtube.com/embed/QrGrOK8oZG8

;)

The perfect setup.

<facepalm> Beautiful comeback.

Thanks :)

Homeland's intro is about 1:20 I believe. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x17tp3q_homeland-intro_shor...

I was going to add this to the list, because I think the Homeland intro is really interesting and well done. Usually I fast forward through them, but I notice something new everytime with this one.

There's this cool trade off between how much you can charge for commercials, and for how long you can take up an audiences interest. The cable shows have longer intros. I think this is because of how expensive it is to shoot the footage, but they know they can capture the audience for a full hour, so they'll grab any way to get to that full hour cheaper.

Cartoons are an extreme example, being very very expensive to animate, many cartoons in Japan have an intro of almost 15 minutes, then ~25 show, then 5 minutes outro! (these are cartoons targeted at teens/adults)

True Blood is something like 1:30

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjooosDIFgQ

Dexter is even longer with ~1:47

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIqBQWB7IUM

Game of Thrones is a good 1:30 as well.

The most impressive things are often the hardest to appreciate because they seem so effortless and don't stand in the way of an overall experience.

A personal favorite: the motion graphics in this "making-of" video for a 1983 HBO intro:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqzihgR_-SI#t=309

This is the pre-Tron era, where the easiest way to get a picture of a chrome logo is to build one out of brass. The starburst and light ribbon effects later in the video are similarly brilliant examples of pre-CG CG.

Thanks for sharing that! That really brings back some memories.

Now I'm reminded of the video to Justice's DVNO, which is almost entirely made of homages to '70s and '80s title effects, including a huge reference to the HBO logo sequence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiDsLRQg_g4

Great post, really interesting to see how they did the shots and glad to see they opted for real footage and techniques most of the time rather than just post processing everything.

I used to shoot free form lenses, it was difficult to get a still from, shooting video would be a challenge. My (old) post on free lens shooting: https://mkaz.com/2005/01/08/homemade-lenses/

I get redirected to "http://www.alex-buono.com/how-we-did-it-snl-titles-sequence/....

Yeah looks like their Wordpress box is having a tough time with the amount of requests HN is sending their way.

I'm really happy to see a post like this on HN. Pulling off creative in-camera shots like these are a million times more rewarding for some reason than creating/editing them in post. There's something visceral about getting the shot right in the moment.

Wow that's incredible how they combine so many techniques. The use of lenses is really innovative, I mean, people would think it's made only with special effects and it's 3D printed or done entirely manually ! Congrats.

I usually fast-forward through the title sequence. Now I feel bad for doing so. Will take the time to watch it next SNL.

Honestly the title sequence is one of the best parts. I get nostalgic for NYC, while I'm watching it in NYC.

It is linked at the end of their article: http://www.alex-buono.com/portfolio/snl-opening-montage-2014...

This summer I attended one of the editing workshops put on by Adam Epstein who edits all of the film unit productions. It's incredible how fast they write, produce, edit, and turn around these projects. They are literally working from Thursday afternoon until Saturday evening to build these from scratch.

Seems down, archive link still works: http://web.archive.org/web/20141021121813/http://www.alex-bu...

Was looking forward to watching the final product, but restricted due to being in Canada =/

That's a dumb rule :( Here, download this https://www.dropbox.com/s/qtwv5cdh2dajt0g/new_snl.mp4?dl=0

Now I feel bad for always fast-forwarding through this part of SNL.

this was a really cool effect...but I never found SNL to be funny. I've never even laughed at it once. I don't understand why people laugh...that and jimmy fallon/kimmel

It used to be hilarious. I'm talking Bill Murry era. Maybe I was young and usually stoned, but if the Saturday night was unfruitful(meaning no women); I'd rush home and watch SNL and really got a kick out of it. Just thinking about that "Miss Loupner" thing has me smiling.

As a viewer since season 1, SNL has always been funny but inconsistent. If you go back now and watch those early shows yes, there were some awesome sketches, but they were surrounded by a lot of duds as well.

I respect the show just for what it is. These people write and build an entire 90 minute show going from zero to rehearsals in 5 days. No other show has done this for decades and lived to tell about it.

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