Animal Kingdom Main Title Sequence
Description :
We were thrilled when John Wells and Jonathan Lisco reached out to talk about their new series, Animal Kingdom. As we began discussions, they asked us to look beyond the surface of the show. It’s more than just a complicated family drama… And they described how the humor, the Oedipal complex underlying their relationships, the complexity of each of the individual characters and the tension, love and codependency they all share impacts all aspects of the characters’ lives.
In addition to focusing on the complexity of the show’s relationships, we were excited to hear that, like Shameless, they wanted to produce a 60 second sequence and for it to become an iconic representation of the series. So we came in to create the main title and Atticus Ross was enlisted to do the music. His track is a masterful representation of tone of the series and is a great contrast for our visuals.
As a result, the piece we created explores the indelibleness of the family’s relationships, using the tattooing process (which Ellen Barkin’s character undergoes on the show) as a metaphor. In between those tattooing scenes, we flash imagery that relates to the boys’ childhood and their transition to fully realized men. The resulting juxtaposition explores themes that you wouldn’t expect to see in the same place, blurring the lines between childhood emotions, adult sexuality and endorphin-educing activities.