a new perspective
Client
Saloon Media
For Amazon's Falling For A Killer, Saloon Media came to us with a story that's been retold many times, but never quite like this. Ted Bundy is one of the most horrific serial killers of our time who's studied story is often told through a lens that glamorizes and, at times, even idolizes him and his manipulative ways. Trish Wood wanted to change that narrative and provide a voice to the women that had been silently victimized for decades.
coming forward
Our story begins with the relationship between Liz Kendall and Ted Bundy. The Saloon team provided detailed research along with a vast archive of photography and footage of the events.
Amongst the archival photography were beautiful aerial shots of the Pacific Northwest that we knew we wanted to feature in the open. With our toolbox full, we jumped into design and rendered 6 standalone main title concepts we felt told different aspects of Liz and Ted’s story, while still giving a stage to the victims and surrounding political and social themes of the era.
Ultimately, we fell for a concept that juxtaposes personal photography and the mystic environment of the Pacific Northwest. Using the environments to situate, obscure and reveal these personal images, the addition of practical slide and photo edges add a sense of shared and faded memories while allowing for compositional variety. The movement language is inspired by slide carousels, and additional light elements break the barrier between inner and outer elements, creating a haunting and melancholic atmosphere.
With each episode, the story continued to grow and layer igniting a desire to customize opens for each chapter. In the end, we built 5 opens, each with vignettes of new subjects and themes related to the next story.
When treating the photographs for the open and the series as a whole, it was important to us that we capture this iconic time and place in a high-quality manner. With the aging of the raw materials, colors became muted or distressed in such a way that begged for new life.
We tested our capabilities to breathe a “Kodachrome” vibrancy to over 100 photographs, giving a brightness and spirit to scenes of the portraits of the women that fell victim, and Liz’s time with Ted.
Once treated we were able to use the high-res photography in multiple ways to support the story. We created parallaxed scenes and stitched stills together into animated scenes for the Sandpiper vignette and dream sequences. We also generated custom document and newspaper animations, video & photo treatments, and type toolkits for the entire series.
While a dark and trying tale, the collaboration and pure storytelling was a thrill to visualize and bring to life. A big thanks again to Saloon Media and their trust in bringing us on.
