Concept and creative process
Opening titles for a 1994 adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel. Old Martin Chuzzlewit is a very rich man, but paranoid that everyone is trying to steal his money. The title sequence was created by means of a motion control shoot of objects pertaining to Martin Chuzzlewit’s wealth management and property development interests, filmed on a slate background. A simple gobo highlighted the objects and created a naturally darker area for the elegant credits. Separate identical takes were shot to enable additional objects and props to be mixed in and out in post-production during the continuous move, including the live cockroaches, which were analogous in Chuzzlewit’s mind to the people he feared were out to steal his money.