Samuel Bayer, Platinum Dunes
TITLE SEQUENCE DESIGN | LIVE ACTION AND DESIGN | TYPOGRAPHY AND DESIGN FOR MOTION
Wes Craven’s classic horror series “A Nightmare on Elm Street” was rebooted in 2010, with director Samuel Bayer at the helm. The reboot follows a storyline akin to the original film released in 1984, where the iconic, knife wielding Freddy Krueger terrorizes the children of the parents who murdered him, in their dreams. The children quickly deduce the only way to stay safe is to stay awake, or fall into an inescapable nightmarish hell.
Prologue produced the main title sequence for the film. By means of introducing the prey subject to Krueger’s grisly executions, we shot live action at a playground of kids interacting with one another, on swing sets and playing hopscotch. Prologue typography introduces the cast and crew, animating over the same respective name, hand drawn with chalk on the pavement of the playground. During the location scout, finding cracked pavement was of paramount importance, to communicate the fractured lives of the children, their parents and Krueger alike. We shot tabletop photography of wooden alphabet blocks and morsels of chalk. Take heed at the placement of the blocks, as messages are written in them. Some of the blocks were set ablaze in reference to the horrid burns enveloping Krueger’s body. To further the elementary backstory, we interpolated black and white composites of the preschool, students and classroom photos. We treated these stills to have a scratched celluloid semblance, an allegory for the disappearance of the children throughout the story.
