In part one of our interview with Kyle Cooper, the acclaimed title designer, art director and filmmaker discusses typography, his love for the imperfection of handmade things, and his main titles for Darkness Falls, Se7en and Spiderman 2.
In Part 2, Cooper discusses “integrated typography” and three classic main titles that made a big impression on him: The Dead Zone by Wayne Fitzgerald, To Kill A Mockingbird by Stephen Frankfurt and Walk On The Wild Side by Saul Bass.
This interview was recorded at the Prologue studio in Venice Beach, Los Angeles, a few days after the Forget the Film, Watch the Titles event at the Hammer Museum (a collaboration with Flux Screening series).
Part of a series of five video interviews with title designers. See also our interviews with Jamie Caliri, Karin Fong, Garson Yu and Danny Yount.
To embed or download this interview: vimeo.com/9400332. With Spanish subtitles by Víctor Merino: vimeo.com/9906444
Kyle Cooper has been credited as the man who single-handedly revitalized the main title sequence as an art form. His groundbreaking title sequence for Se7en (1995) changed the way we look and think about title design today and is arguably the most imitated main title ever made. The Se7en title sequence was hailed by New York Times Magazine as “One of the most important design innovations of the 1990s”.
Cooper founded two internationally recognized film design companies, Imaginary Forces and Prologue Films, both of which are based in Los Angeles and both are influential in their field. His body of work includes over 100 film title sequences. Among the most memorable ones are Mimic, Dawn of the Dead, Donnie Brasco and all three of the Spider-Man movies.
Kyle Cooper’s main titles at Forget the Film, Watch the Titles:
Wimbledon
Godzilla: Final Wars
Se7en
Year of production
2009
Full credits
Director
Femke Wolting and Remco Vlaanderen
Editor
Paul de Heer
Graphics
Madelinde Hageman, Raoul Matheron
Voice over
Lotje Sodderland
Created and published by
SubmarineChannel.com
Recorded at
Prologue, Los Angeles, May 2009
Many thanks to
Kyle Cooper, Prologue
Links
Cooper on The Dead Zone Prologue Imaginary Forces The Film Inside The Film90-minute lecture by Kyle Cooper at Boston University as part of their “College of Fine Arts Contemporary Perspectives Lecture Series,” via Art of the Title.
Thank you for your kind comments.
Played fine here, just FYI. Great interview …
thank you WTT 🙂
happy to watch the Kyle cooper Interview.
Where’s part 2??
Give us a “Stay Tuned” or something to hint that it will come later. I’m searching around the site but I’m finding nothing.
btw – Cooper’s the man!
Great interview indeed!
Mmm, kind of looks like this is the last interview, and it seems it is part 1 of 2. So we need to wait a little bit, I suppose?
But this is the wonder that internet is… so your ‘Stay Tuned’ can be found in that orange icon somewhere on this page (RSS is its name :))
Underneath the video there’s text with some info on part 2.
We don’t know when Part 2 of the Cooper interview will be online yet. This is related to a feature documentary on title design we’re developing. So stay tuned!
It’s funny how directors never give credit or at least a thanks to the people that helped them with their work. Don’t get me wrong Kyle Cooper is good, but c’mon, he didn’t do the Seven, Mimic, etc. titles by himself. Sure he was Creative Director, but even CD’s get help from the people they work with.
@freelancer:
Not true. Kyle gives ample credit to all that participated in the Se7en titles in this detailed ‘making of’ interview:
http://watchthetitles.com/articles/00169-Se7en
wow. Kyle Cooper is great! He’s amazing. thank you for the links for Mimic and Island of Dr Moreau. i had never seen them. I really appreciate the interview and I can’t wait to see your completed documentary.
Hey great interview. He’s a hard man to track down. Whats the background music? Dj Shadow or dust brothers or something, i cant recall.
whatever, kyle is all “me” “me” “me”
he takes ALL credit for talented people who he whips and slave drives.
i do give kyle credit for finding phenomenal talent who will make him look good.
those people are the ones who need to be credited to putting kyle on the mantle that he is on.
A completely misinformed comment. During the interview, Kyle actually constantly gave credit to all the people he worked with, be it directors, designers or DP’s. Just read the Se7en interview on this site.
It’s funny because se7en did make me want to become a graphic designer, motion designer, title sequence designer.