Tape, Richard Linklater’s experimental digital video film starring Uma Thurman, Ethan Hawke and Robert Sean Leonard, which debuted at the Sundance Festival, features titles designed by EyeballNYC art director and designer Jory Hull. Here's a QuickTime movie of the title sequence.

Richard Linklater, whose breakthrough film was Slacker, decided to shoot Tape, a theatrical adaptation which takes place in one hotel room, on DV tape. And, while every designer would love to pull out all the stops for a feature film title sequence, EyeballNYC’s Hull recognized the need to do just the opposite for Tape. Keeping to the nature of this visually simple, low-budget, experimental video movie, Hull designed titles to match, using animated white type over a black ground. “I brought my laptop to Duart, where Linklater was making a film transfer and showed him some ideas and we decided to go the simplest way,” Hull said.

“The challenge was to develop a title concept that would not overwhelm the simplicity of the movie itself,” Jory added. “The animated treatment is intended to look like it might have been shot with a miniature handheld DV camera and presents the titles and credits as if they are on a videocassette tape, passing through an invisible capstan and briefly stopping before the viewer.”

Hull captured the feeling of rolling videotape without showing any hardware, making each credit roll with its own individual movement, even adding little vibrations to simulate the handheld nature of the shoot. “We wanted to keep the titles kind of abstract, like a mini idea that we don’t expect everyone to grasp right away,” Hull added.

“I think this treatment demonstrates that white type on a black background can still be interesting,” said Hull, who selected an industrial typeface to create the feeling of the simple text one might see on a cassette box or a tape recorder housing.”
The key was not to make a stylized presentation, which would run counter to the tone of the film. However, EyeballNYC’s designer did give the type some texture and included some break-up like artifacts reminiscent of old videotape. Upon closer inspection one can even see text flaking off in places as it jumps around a bit, quite organically.

“I wanted the titles to pop on screen but not to appear to be digital animation, rather a little off, a little dirtied up, as opposed to a creative typeface treatment,” Hull added.

The three-day project was produced with After Effects and 3D Studio Max for tape path animation.

TAPE
Directed by: Richard Linklater
Produced by: Anne Walker, Detour Film production Starring: Ethan Hawke, Robert Sean Leonard, Uma Thurman In TAPE, Vin (Ethan Hawke), travels back home to Lansing for a film festival and meets up with an old friend Jon (Robert Sean Leonard). Vin is still bitter about Jon stealing his high school girlfriend Amy (Uma Thurman) and can’t forget his greatest betrayal—Jon may have raped Amy. Jon and Vin play a tug-of-war of words all night in an old hotel room, all of which Vin captures on tape. Just as the situation reaches a frenzied pitch, Amy arrives to recount her side of the story. The film was produced by Anne Walker and Detour Film production.

(Shot on DV, Premiered at Sundance. To be distributed by Lions Gate Films.)
Production Company: Eyeball NYC

Client: Indigent
Product: “Tape” film titles/credits

Creative Director: Limore Shur
Senior Designer: Jory Hull
Junior Designer: Rachel Riggs

Producer: Nina Goldberg
Executive Producer: Michael Eastwood

For more information, contact EyeballNYC eyeballnyc.com