LAWRENCE KASDAN | VILLAGE ROADSHOW PICTURES
MAINTITLES

Based on the Stephen King novel of the same name, Dreamcatcher tells the story of four childhood friends that courageously come to the aid of a boy that is being bullied. Subsequently, the tormented and mysterious youngster administers telepathic powers to each of his saviors. Now adults, the foursome vacation to a hunting cabin in the algid woods of Maine, except their planned reunion is curtailed when a parasitic alien life form terrorizes the town.
Kyle Cooper directed the studio logo retreatments and the main title sequence for Dreamcatcher, one of the last projects he conducted before the emergence of Prologue Films.
Given the boreal setting of the story, the studio logos for Warner Brothers, Castle Rock Entertainment, and Village Roadshow Pictures were ameliorated by making them appear as if they were caught in the middle of the Blizzard of 78’. The effect was designed to accustom the audience with the tonality of the sci-fi horror story.
The main title sequence is an oeuvre fueled by live action, tabletop macro photography, time lapses, aerial coverage and phantasmagorical transitions. Cooper directed the macro shoot, examining all facets of the Ojibwe originated dreamcatcher. We transition between sections of the object in an illusory manner to reflect the many inexplicable happenings in the story, firstly, how a bullied child was able to transmit telepathic abilities to four other beings. The main title animation shares a similar quality in its materialization. Each letter was treated with a shape-shifting attribute, challenging the perception of the viewer, a connective theme between the title sequence and the story. We continued our exploration of the elements of this world by shooting icicles thawing, frosted layers of ice, and macro shots of the twine of a dreamcatcher. Aerial coverage, shot during the production of the film, was treated with a morphing ability, a tool used to evolve from one subject to the next, coalescing the different elements of the shoot. Masked into the sequence is our first look at Byrus and its shark-like rows of teeth, adumbrating the horrors our characters will come to endure.