When director Douglas Mackinnon asked Peter Anderson and his studio to design the opening titles for Good Omens, the Amazon Prime TV series based on the book by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, he had only one major stipulation.
“He said,” recounts Anderson, “‘I want you to promise me that you send us emails that start with, ‘This might sound absolutely mad, but our idea is dot dot dot’. That set the tone for the creative process, which was wonderful.”
It’s fair to say the London-based Peter Anderson Studio came through with flying colors on that brief, Anderson himself describing Good Omens’ animated titles as “a totally bonkers mishmash of all animation styles in a way where they feel as if they belong together.”
The titles certainly feel like something inspired, at least in part, by Terry Jones’ famous animated cut-out vignettes in Monty Python’s Flying Circus. The twist is that Good Omens’ opener employs illustration, physical props, character animation, 3D and even live-action footage to foretell the show’s story about the clash of Heaven and Hell and the coming apocalypse.
“Our titles really mimic the drama,” says Anderson, “because in the show, for instance, you’ve got a classic English countryside and then suddenly a spacecraft that’s been drawn by a child and re-made in 3D comes flying down and aliens come out that have duck heads. We had to work in that same totally bonkers spirit.”
In the opening titles, a myriad characters from Good Omens are in procession — often via escalators up (and down) — to the end of the world. From concepts and storyboards, Peter Anderson Studio launched into a major exploratory process of generating imagery that directly referenced the show’s cast of people and creatures. Ultimately, all the characters seen in the titles actually began as “real,” live-action people.
“It’s me as many characters,” says Anderson. “And then there are different members of our studio wearing the costumes from the actual show, sometimes filmed on a green screen walking on a travelator. Then what we did is we cut them out and we made real people look like strange animations by tracking two-dimensional heads onto them.”
This is where things become even more surreal. Each one of the two-dimensional heads, reveals Anderson, are actually “in-disguise” representations of the show’s two lead actors, Michael Sheen and David Tennant, who play the angel Aziraphale and demon Crowley, respectively.
“The reason we did that,” states Anderson, “is that Neil said that he felt there was good and bad in everybody, and the angels and the demons represented the good and bad that exists within the world. So we’d take Michael and David’s faces and adapt them by, say, adding a mohawk or sunglasses, for example.”
That’s not the only detail to look out for in Good Omens’ opening titles, which warrant multiple viewings to catch several Easter eggs. Anderson says look out for a cactus wilting as a demon walks by, or even one moment where a someone realizes they are on a downward escalator path to Hell, only to start running up the people-mover the wrong way.
“Whether you interpret the titles as the characters choosing their sides to go to war, or as something where we all approach the end of the world and we’re going to go one way or the other, it’s up to you,” concludes Anderson. “I hope there are lots of double meanings in the storytelling.”
do you ever think about aziraphale’s books, why he chose to surround himself with, of all that earth had to offer, books.
books are collections of knowledge and imagination; they are literally humanity distilled into stories. there is nothing, in my opinion, more profoundly, fundamentally human than a book. and aziraphale’s home is filled with them, filled with human stories that he doesn’t want anyone to buy take from him. he lives his entire life surrounded by books; he is an angel and can create the most lovely, safe space imaginable, and he chooses to stuff it floor-to-ceiling with books.
If you dare come at me about banning straws, I will throw you into the sun cannon. I’m disabled, I’m crippled, I need disposable plastic straws, and all those pricey ridiculous alternatives aren’t working as well. Plastic straws were invented for the disabled.
Way to shit all over a vital access need because you think straws are worse than corporate greed.
We all care about the turtles, the seals, the oceans, obviously. Notice how the easiest thing to yell about was something that would barely affect anything but appealed heavily to emotional discourse.
The disabled community is huge, and it can be joined by anyone. Most of those As Seen On TV products were invented for us. Society still mocks us and ignores us, and often outright harms us in multiple ways.
Communicate better. Listen better. But stop putting us out in the cold because you are inconvenienced by our simplest needs.
Straws aren’t killing the planet, its animals, or people. They’re a microscopic fraction of an iota of a percentage of the problem. You want to do something? Ban plastic fishing nets. Anything else is just a hollow feel-good gesture at the expense of real living disabled people.
A year-long investigation of private Facebook hate groups by REVEAL
finds close to 400 current and retired law enforcement officers are
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including NYPD.
I mean, those two are a black hole of show praise. Fair enough. They are fucking fantastic characters and Sheen and Tennant nailed it completely. But these are some moments/things I loved that are not our fave Angel and Demon dream team, because there was so much brilliant stuff in this show.
-That hilarious camera pan-down to the recently-puppified Dog the Hellhound. I mean, that whole sequence was funny, but this shot in particular emphasized the humor. Great directing.
-Dog’s glowing eyes (on his adorably Good Boi face) when he tries to threaten the cat. So cute.
-Gabriel’s “just buying pornography!” ruse to avoid drawing attention to himself but totally just weirding out the customers. Just so hilariously out of touch with life on earth.
-Hastur just shrieking his head off for a solid minute after the holy water.
-Miranda Richardson acting as two different people at once. She was seamless. When she was pantomiming for Aziraphale’s lines, I totally bought it. How can an actor be that good?
-That long shot of War with a shit-eating grin after she receives the sword and chaos is just letting lose behind her. Cinema.
-The confused Tibetans retreating back into their tunnel after running Dick Turpin off the road. I just thought it was a really fun and cute shot.
-”Chow. It’s Italian. Means ‘food.’”
-I still get such a kick out of Agnes turning herself into a human bomb. The sequence was so well done in the show.
