Kestrel Film Society
A title sequence that earns its ninety seconds
Kestrel screens documentaries in a 180-seat room and had ninety seconds of house titles that nobody watched. We rebuilt the sequence as one uninterrupted move, so the audience has nothing to look away from.
- Identity, title sequence and seasonal toolkit
- 2K DCP, 90 seconds, single take
- Mark, type system, editable sequence, sound bed
- 7 weeks
One move, no cuts
The entire sequence is a single camera push through a stack of frames. Each frame holds one piece of information — the society, the season, the film — and the camera passes through it rather than cutting to it. Because there is never an edit, there is never a moment where attention is released.
Vermilion appears exactly three times: on the mark, on the season number, and on the last frame. Everything else is ink and paper.
Built to be reused
The sequence is a template, not a one-off render. Season number, film title and date are typed into a single control layer, and the move, the timing and the sound design stay identical. A volunteer can produce a new title card in under ten minutes without opening the animation.
Sound first
We locked the sound design before the animation. The move is timed to a four-beat room tone that resolves on the last frame, which is why the sequence feels like it ends rather than simply stops.
“People stopped talking during the titles. We had never had that before.”
Who made it.
Identity · Title design · Motion · Sound direction
- Creative direction
- Halvane
- Title design and animation
- Halvane motion team
- Sound design
- Independent composer
- Grade
- Halvane
