SECRET HEADQUARTERS: TITLE DESIGN
Our team at Perception collaborated with the team at Paramount on their new superhero film, Secret Headquarters. Secret Headquarters tells the story of Charlie Kincaid (Walker Scobell), his friends and their discovery of a superhero’s headquarters beneath his father’s home. Charlie and his friends soon learn that his father is actually the owner of this headquarters and is a famous superhero named the Guard. For this film, our team conceptualized various pieces of technology, as well as designed an opening title sequence to show the progression of the Guard’s rise to national heroism. I worked with the team at Perception Secret Headquarters: Title Sequence case on Paramounts' Secret Headquarters: Title Sequence to help animate and design some UI features for the film. This page features segments pulled directly from Perception's Secret Headquarters Technology Design case study Secret Headquarters: Title Sequence case to show some of the shots I contributed to.
OPENING TITLE SEQUENCE
The opening titles were a crucial element of the story, since they told ten years of development between when Jack first discovers the source to him being a fully recognized hero. We worked closely with the directors to map out this narrative, along with organizing ideas and the story itself. Anything that we needed to tell the story, such as voiceovers or additional footage, they helped shoot and provide for us.
FAMILY TENSION
One of the most distinct themes of Secret Headquarters is the tension and struggling family dynamics in Charlie’s family. Charlie is resentful of his father because he’s never around, which he does not understand until he discovers his secret identity. It was important that we established the beginning of this tension in our opening title sequence. In this sequence, the source is sorting through various audio recordings and news clips that are examining the Guard. At one point, the source brushes away the news to uncover audio recordings of a phone call between Charlie and Jack, which reveals that Charlie never sees his father. This is the source showing that Jack is getting too caught up in being the Guard, but it quickly moves onto more news segments and people in crisis because the hero is needed.
CONNECTING ARGON
When the source was first discovered by Jack, he was not alone. His partner, Sean Irons (Jesse Williams) is with him but is not the one to receive the source. This has brought about a jealous bitterness in Sean that results in him working with Argon to track the Guard down. In order to bridge these plot points, we included footage of Sean appealing to Argon online and showing that he has a connection to the Guard.
THE SOURCE
Similar to our technology designs for Secret Headquarters, we based our look for this title sequence on the appearance of the energy source. We applied the orange color palette and hexagonal patterns to the sequence, allowing it to slightly resemble the holograms and technology of the Guard. Not only did this tie the sequence into the look and common visual landscape of the film, but it also introduced the audience to the Guard’s technology before the children get to see it.
CONCLUSION
Our team also designed the graphics seen in the concluding storylines cards at the end of the film. These cards serve as a way to wrap up the characters’ storylines. Each card and graphic was personalized to the character with a UI flare as a callback to the prominent technology of the film.