Applied Animation: Catch Me If You Can

Catch Me If You Can (2002) is a crime drama film directed by Steven Spielberg that is based on the life of Frank Abagnale, a man who successfully performed cons worth millions of dollars. I personally haven't seen the film, although I have seen the title sequence. I stumbled across it on Art of the Title, and because I'd heard it was a good film, I gave the video a watch.

Catch Me If You Can - Title Sequence

The title sequence was produced by Olivier Kuntzel and Florence Deygas (Kuntzel+Deygas) and is very "Saul Bass-Esque" as they felt that Speilberg "wanted to have a sequence made by an artist, not a studio, in order to keep the charm of a 'human hand'". They made rubber stamps of the characters and the different body parts so that the movement could be easily captured by hand. They felt that even though Spielberg "made significant use of modern technology in recent times", the film didn't suit high tech.

Photographs of Stamp Components

I like that the artists have clearly put a lot of thought into the style of the animation, and made the style compliment not only the introduction music, but the genre of the film. Even though I haven't seen it myself, I like that the use silhouettes maintains the anonymity of the character in the story, as well as Abagnale himself, as he went undetected/uncaught for many years.

No matter which book I chose to work with, I think working with silhouettes could be a very good idea, as they keep the identity of the character a secret. In the stories you don't find out who has committed the crime (well at least the protagonists don't) until the very end of book, so the use of silhouettes will most definitely portray this mystery. 

Not only do I like the style of the animation, but the content too. The title sequence acts out the plot of the film without giving too much of the story away, instead it is much more subtle. At first you may not even notice that it does this, because your attention is divided between the stamp characters and the interesting titles that they interact with. 

This could be something I consider doing for my own animation. Rather than focusing on the first chapter, I could pick out key scenes and act them out vaguely to give you a taste of what the story/film is about. If I were to do this, I would most likely have to choose a book that I have already read, as I will need to know what happens in order to plan out my storyboard/key frames. 

If this were to be the style I decide to work with, I would most likely produce it digitally as I feel this would be the best way to create the silhouettes. Also animating some 2d objects might be a lot easier by using after effects (Like the car chase in this example) as I can easily make them move without having to redraw them.