In part two of our interview with Kyle Cooper, the acclaimed title designer, art director and filmmaker 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.
Watch Part 1 here
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
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 Se7en, Mimic, Dawn of the Dead, Donnie Darco 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
at Art of the Title:
The Incredible Hulk
Donnie Brasco
Mimic
The Island of Dr. Moreau
Year of production
2010
Full credits
Thanks to
Kyle Cooper and everyone at Prologue
Directors
Femke Wolting, Remco Vlaanderen
Editor
Paul de Heer, Dominique Kools
Ident
Raoul Matheron
Created and published by
SubmarineChannel.com
Recorded at
Prologue, Los Angeles, May 2009
Links
Prologue Cooper on The Dead Zone Cooper on Se7en 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
That was awesome!
There seemed to be some buffering issues though. Kept choking up every 15-20 seconds.
Thanks Andy,
Glad you enjoyed the interview. We’ll look into the buffering issue. What you could do is pause the video and wait till it’s loaded. Not ideal. I know. Another option would be to watch it on Vimeo. You’ll find the link in the text.