Phantom Pups
Main Title Sequence - Director's Cut
Air Bud Entertainment - 2022
I had the pleasure to direct the title sequence for "Phantom Pups," a Netflix series produced by the team at Air Bud Entertainment - the same people behind the iconic 90's film about a golden retriever with a talent for playing basketball.
Deliverables
Animation
Client
Airbud Entertainment
Year
2022
Synopsis
The show follows Freddy, a young boy, and his family, as they move into a haunted house. They soon encounter three lovable ghost puppies and embark on a journey to help them return to their physical form as real dogs.
Concept
After an initial discussion and sharing some references, I set out to create two sets of style frames.
The creative team really wanted to have a lot more action in the title sequence. Something reminiscent of Scooby-doo’s chase sequences. In order to achieve that, I had to assemble a team of illustrators and character designers and set out to recreate some of the series’ iconic scenes and locations.
Environments
I drafted some rough sketches of each scene based on the series’ locations and sets. Syd Weiler, with the help of Fe Riberio made them into amazing paintings for our characters to act in. Each element of the background had to be on a separate layer for it to be animated later in After Effects.
Character design
With a total of ten animated characters, I knew I needed to call for some help. Eduardo Casian lead the character design with a bit of help from Diana Santos for Jinx and Syd Weiler for Grim.
Our three phantom pups: Booey, Lewey and Chewy.
Freddy (Jett Klyne), Piper (Thalia Campbell) and Mimi (Eva Brooke Baker)
Cleo (Kelli Ogmundson) and Edwyn (Evan Marsh)
I had a lot of fun getting my hands dirty and designing the vehicles and props.
Rigging
The character rigs are done in DUIK Bassel.2 by Anne Saint Louis and myself. The characters all have a set of facial expressions as well as the ability to look both ways while accommodating the asymmetric design. Cleo and Edwyn also have a skeleton version for their electrocution scene as well as a post-electrocution hair.
Animation
The animation was done at 12 FPS. Some of the moves were so tight that it was done only on key poses, without any need for in-betweens. I worked with Anne Saint Louis to animate all these
Typefaces
In order to catch the attention of the viewer in this wild title sequence, I knew the font had to be very eye-catching. I played around with a lot of options and settled on LOKI. A very bold, playful, display font with two typefaces designed by Mehmet Reha Tuğcu.
To add life to it, I played with some jumpy, jittery motion, a ghostly glow as well as a lot of anticipation, overshoot and follow-through to get the titles in and out of frame.
Final Frames
Credits:
Direction, design, and animation by Vivian Demaurex
Environments designed by Syd Weiler
Character designed by Eduardo Casian
Character rigging and animation by Anne Saint Louis
Additional environments designed by Fe Riberio
Additional character designed by Diana Santos