Monster Café (1994)

Concept and creative process

Titles for a children's series. Frankie, Mummy and Igor run the Monster Cafe, a gruesome eatery watched over by the villainous Baroness, owner of the castle that houses the cafe and the creator of Frankie. The titles were created with a multiplane animation, shot using a motion-controlled rostrum camera, whose ability to repeat identical moves enabled subtle changes of the drawn artwork to be seamlessly edited to enhance the superimposed animated lightning effects. The cave walls formed a vignette for the studio live action and silhouetted animated bats created a natural transition from the ‘Monster Café’ exterior neon sign to the interior of the café.