Apple TV's Severance is a masterpiece of television and visual design. We've already written about the quality of prop design in Severance and about how the Lumon logo is the perfect pastiche of corporate design.
But Severance's aesthetics stand out from the moment each episode begins. It's one of those few series you can stream and never want to skip the opening credits, so I was intrigued to come across a behind-the-scenes video offering a glimpse of how the Severance title sequence was made.
The Severance title sequences for both seasons were made by the Berlin-based artist Oliver Latta, AKA Extraweg, who specialises in surreal 3D animation.
In Season 2, the sequence is darker (see the full sequence below), going deeper into the subconscious mind of Mark, the series' hero. It's a sequence that rewards repeat watching, revealing new details and Easter eggs each time. And more elements start to make sense or take on new meaning as the series progresses.
The animation reflects the series' themes of fractured identity, duality, isolation and the idea that reality could just be a construct. It's a dreamlike journey into Mark's mind, from 'brain babies' to Mark emerging from his own head.
To create the animation, Oliver used motion capture (mocap) and then worked in Houdini and Cinema 4D (see our pick of the best animation software). What I hadn't imagined was that he would have captured the mocap footage in his own living room.
The setting makes the process look so casual and easy, although Oliver says it was much more complicated that how the behind-the-scenes footage makes it look, with a lot of hand animation and corrections involved.
Wondering what to watch next? See our piece on What is The Eternaut? the epic sci-fi comic coming to Netflix this month.
You can watch Severance on Apple TV.
