A52 wins Emmy for Carnivale's titles

Post, Oct, 2004

WEST HOLLYWOOD -- Visual effects and design company A52 (www.a52.com) was recognized at the 56th Annual Emmy Awards for its work on the HBO series Carnivale. The studio garnered an Emmy for "Outstanding Main Title Design."

A52's artistic tarot card exploration combines 2D and 3D animation and visual effects. High-resolution scans of famous art was separated into foreground and background elements and then assembled into 2.5D sequences inside Side Effects Houdini software. Motion sequences were edited to highlight historical events. The entire 90 piece was assembled in Discreet Inferno and finished in high definition.

Credits include creative director Angus Wall, executive producers Rick Hassen and Darcy Leslie Parsons, senior producer Scott Boyajan, visual effects supervisors/Inferno artists Patrick Murphy and Simon Brewster, designers Vonetta Taylor, Ryan Gibson and Jesse Monsour, and 3D animators Denis Gauthier, Westley Sarokin and JeffWillette.

The live action footage of the Carnivale title artwork in the sand was supervised by Murphy and Taylor, and was filmed by DP James Glennon.

In addition to Todd London, post credits include post supervisors Shane Keller and April Rossi, and post coordinator Beth Tashjian.

Absolutely Archives in Maryland did much of the research, and Susan Nickerson of Nickerson Research provided additional stock footage research support. Stock still imagery was provided by Amistad Research Center, Art Resource, Corbis, Freer Gallery of Art and The Mary Evans Picture Library. Original imagery was also commissioned by illustrator Jimmy Yamasaki of LA's 88phases. Motion stock footage was provided by CMG Worldwide, Fast Images, Film Archive, Grinberg Images, John E. Allen Inc., Streamline and the UCLA Film & Television Archives.

Colorists on the project were Tim Masick at NYC's Company 3, Dennis Cardamone at Ascent Media in Burbank and Tim Bono at Bono Film & Video in Arlington, VA.