The Lakes (1999)

Concept and creative process

Titles for ‘The Lakes’, a drama series based in a small Lake District community, written by Jimmy McGovern. The title sequence was used as a preface to the programme and revealed in a dream sequence a fatal traumatic drowning that had happened when Danny was in charge of a rowing-boat hire concession on the lake. The main title caption conveyed his sense of shock on waking abruptly from the nightmare. For this animated caption the lettering was typeset and printed out and designer Christine Buttner (now Green) drew a rough texture on an overlay. The two artworks were then scanned and realigned and filmed on a rostrum camera. The main title effects were added in the online edit suite together with the drowning sequence and the nightmare footage, all filmed by the production.