Around the World in 80 Days opening titles

We were asked to pitch for the opening titles for Around the World in 80 Days starring David Tennant. I was able to watch all of the episodes and hear the score so I had a good feel for the pace and tone of the show.

I initially pitched two different ideas.

My first idea was to use a rotating planet that twisted and turned into different scenes. This approach was rejected due to the lack of color and sense of fun.

My second idea was heavily influenced by the score created by Hans Zimmer and Christian Lundberg. I wanted to depict every episode as a different layer in the mechanism of an ornate clock. I only created a couple of style frames to get the idea across but it captured the clients imagination immediately.

We were awarded the job so I got on to the storyboard! I used this process to flush out different ideas and to see which scenes were the strongest.

Once the storyboard was signed off I started the animation. It took a while to get the ticking motion to a place that we were happy with but it was a very fun and smooth project. One of my favorites!

And here is the end result.