We’re roughly a month away from he premiere of AMC’s highly anticipated “The Walking Dead” and walking dead mania is beginning to spread like a virus infection. The first of its victim being commercial director Daniel Kanemoto. Who took time to create this amazing opening title sequence for the show. Even though it’s just fan-made, it’s perfect in every possible way. It’ll really give the real opening sequence a run for its money. Here’s what Kanemoto had to say:
The concept behind my approach was to take the stark, black-and-white artwork from the comic and add even more depth using an animated camera that would sweep in-and-out of some of the early moments in the series. The tank scene was something I really wanted to highlight, since it played such a prominent role in the teaser trailer (and it looks exactly like what I imagined it would look like, thanks to Frank Darabont and his talented cast and crew). For timing, I selected a song by the Eels called ‘Fresh Blood’ and my talented editor, Jeff Yorkes, cut it down to size. All the animation was executed in AfterEffects, in high-def, which made my poor computer have a heart attack.
My favorite “exclusive” from this year’s Comic-Con was a beautiful painting by legendary artist Drew Struzan, featuring a horde of zombies from THE WALKING DEAD. Frank Darabont is adapting the apocalyptic Image Comics book created by Robert Kirkman, and man, it looks really, really great.
As I was admiring Struzan’s work of art, I wondered what the opening titles to this terrifying new television show might look like… so I animated a spec title sequence using artwork ripped from the pages of the comic, originally illustrated by Charlie Adlard and Tony Moore.
Just so there’s no confusion, I’m not affiliated with the production in any way — I’m simply a huge fan of both Frank Darabont and Robert Kirkman, and this is my attempt at creating a cinematic introduction to one of the all time great “continuing stories of survival horror.
“The Walking Dead” premieres October 31st on AMC.