Concept and creative process
The brief was to create a title sequence for a new BBC One hard-hitting drama about undercover detectives, ‘In Deep’. I wanted to design something that reflected the sleazy, edgy, undercover, low-end nature of the subject matter. I liked the sense of layers being torn away to reveal things.
I was recommended for this job by Mal Young because he’d liked my ‘Judge John Deed’ titles. I designed a programme logo and photocopied it roughly onto clear acetate. I then shot it under a rostrum camera creating shadows and using ‘dirty’ colours – yellow and orange mainly. Out of this I created several animated textural backgrounds. I was given some rushes by the production company which I used as the base layer, and then I added ‘torn edge’ elements over the top with the animated typography. I put the whole thing together myself on the Hal at BBC Television Centre.