PASADENA (Fox)

The video is old and the quality is poor, but I put it first because I just love it and the show. Pasadena was a short-lived series created by Mike White (The White Lotus, Freaks and Geeks) and Diane Keaton (the one and only), that aired only four episodes before being canceled. Since then, it’s gained a well-deserved cult status, with the full series eventually airing on Soapnet and elsewhere. The show focused on a wealthy Southern California family with a considerable number of skeletons in their very sumptuous walk-in closet.

Ann Epstein-Cohen got us the gig, which (with Dan Kohne) we shot using actual family snapshots provided by the cast. My daughter, Willow, also appears in a photo from Pasadena’s Central Park. During the conceptual phase, we spent time scouting local mansions for the pitch. When we asked one family if we could photograph the front of their home, they told us, “It’s a shame you weren’t here ten minutes ago; our neighbor just came by with his lion.” That anecdote perfectly captured the wonderful absurdity of the world we were stepping into.

NARCOS (Netflix)

The Narcos Season III main title was an award-winning effort—garnering a PromaxBDA Silver, a Telly Bronze, and an SXSW Official Selection—but the process was the real story. The piece is comprised of show footage, material from the real-life characters’ archives, stock footage, and custom footage we shot in LA. We concepted the entire sequence based on an early storyline the Gaumont team was working on, but it evolved quite a bit as they were writing and rewriting the season—resulting in the badass shot of me and Creative Director Nik Kleverov as sweaty, undercover DEA agents being cut from the final edit. While we didn’t make the cut, our animator Andrew Maas did live on as a very convincing, couch-bound junkie.

Bringing custom footage and graphics into visual and emotional alignment with archival material and the show’s dramatized narrative was a fascinating challenge. It was an honor to lead such a crucial component of this distinguished Netflix series with the phenomenal team at DK—and I’ve since made peace with the fact that our animator got more face time than I did.

TH1RTEEN R3ASONS WHY (Netflix)

It’s a very brief open, but I think it perfectly complements the vast, haunting aftermath Hannah Baker’s suicide has on the rest of the characters. I worked with the amazing (and now Emmy-winning!) Peter Pak in the creation of this one; his ability to get to the heart of the story through a completely invented, illustrative, and—I dare say—punk (Elliott Smith punk) stop-frame aesthetic immediately captured the client’s imagination.

Because the show deals with the gravity of teen mental health, it was important that the sequence felt both intimate and thoughtful. We created a library of versions for each episode that featured subtle, hand-drawn pictographic clues as to the incoming conflict, resolving to a doodle of the protagonist’s old-school cassette tapes rising from their box like a ghost from a casket. Set to Eskmo’s beautifully disturbing score, it hit deep. We wanted to reflect the fragility of the narrative and provide a respectful entry point for a young audience navigating such somber and difficult subject matter.

CLAWS (TNT)

For TNT’s Claws, we needed to capture the adrenaline-fueled feline Florida Noir vibe of the series—a show about money laundering through a nail salon that is as joyfully campy as it is dangerous. Working with my team at DK, we developed a hyper-graphic, drug-addled comic book look that leaned into the show’s lacerating neon kitsch undercurrents.

The aesthetic is a collision of high-gloss glamour and gritty comic book (think Sin City with a Mattel palette), tipsily walking the line through the string of main characters. We wanted to emphasize that the flash and the crime could coexist comfortably, with the hyper-saturated fun of the surface belying the danger underneath. Translating that manic energy into a graphic, high-speed visual hook was a terrific exercise in balancing tone without losing the show’s bite.

ULTIMATE EXPEDITION (YouTube Red)

Working with Jukka Hildén on the YouTube Red original series Ultimate Expedition was superbly fun; he brought his same indomitable energy to this American adaptation of his Finnish series, Huippujengi. Art Director Peter Pak was again vital for anchoring the high-concept visual sequence and cleverly attacking the compositing challenges. We needed a cohesive theme that could accommodate a massive range of personalities, from professional athletes and stunt performers to digital creators, and landed on this concept where the characters battle elements and obstacles fashioned out of their own features, literalizing the internal struggle of the climb up Mount Tocllaraju. This helped us view the physical ascent of the Peruvian Andes as a psychological landscape, with an overlay of schmutz that performed both as subtle navigational and weather elements, and artifacts of exhaustion, exhilaration, and something in your eye.

SUN RECORDS (CMT)

Sun Records for CMT was a short-lived series, but a project dear to my heart. Elvis and Johnny Cash figured heavily in my young life as I set out from Kentucky to pursue a music career in LA. Graceland and Elvis are also a pivotal element in my film Garbage, but the definitive Elvis story comes from noted screenwriter and my beloved uncle, Bill Wittliff. Sun Records chronicles the birth of rock and roll in 1950s Memphis, following producer Sam Phillips and record legends Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins. We built the sequence using a mix of actor stills and show footage, which I supplemented with punchy shots filmed to match the show’s raw aesthetic. To ground the visuals in the history of the studio, we comped in authentic handwritten lyrics and setlists. I usually try to sneak a Wittliff easter egg into these titles; this time, my grandfather’s vintage 1945 Kay guitar amp—which I still have—makes an appearance during the wipe to the main title. I loved getting behind the lens and paying homage to some of rock and roll’s greats.

LAST CHANCE U (Netflix)

I knew Last Chance U would be a great project when we showed up for the pitch at Netflix’s Hollywood headquarters and Jeff Goldblum was sitting, waiting in their gorgeous reception area. He looked me up and down, nodded, and in his best Jeff Goldblum, deadpanned, “Blazer and jeans. I invented that.” Then he smiled and walked off to whatever meeting he had scheduled. Bury me in that blazer, kids!

The conceptual approach for this title was to keep it tough, unadorned, and driven, just like the East Mississippi kids on the football field. No overlays, no compositing, and no tricky camera shenanigans or precious graphics. The inspiration came from a single shot I found in the client’s footage dump—of a stoic, sparse community college drumline rhythm section. I’m a drummer. I love the elaborate choreography, acrobatics, and unfathomable endurance and energy of a drumline. But these kids were different—reserved, skeletal, almost like a dignified transfer. If you watch the show, it will make perfect sense. I couldn’t shake that image, or the stark liminal spaces, crows taking flight, and slow-burn player moments captured by Greg Whiteley and his team. With a little editing, some chromatic aberration, and a touch of digital darkroom from maestro Hiroshi Endo, the sequence came together almost on its own volition.

EARTHWORKS (Viceland)

EARTHWORKS follows musicians to remote, personally meaningful, environmentally sensitive locations around the world where they capture field recordings and weave them into unique live performances. To match the show’s blend of raw nature and wilderness-studio processing, we wanted to give the main title an otherworldly, remixed, slightly ayahuascan patina. I shot footage of several of my own musical instruments to anchor the sequence, including a “dap”—an Uighur frame drum with an inlaid rim and internal metal jangles that my dad, Jim Wittliff, brought me from China when I was a kid. We jimmied and intercut this custom footage with stock assets and clips from the show, all set to a remix I did of a track by episode one’s featured artist, Animal Collective. I think the final piece does a nice job of visually mirroring the textures of the field recording idea, and connects them to the the organic environment and artist’s electronic output.

TRUST ME (TNT)

Trust Me was a comedy centered on the high-pressure creative partnership of an art director and a copywriter at a fictional Chicago advertising agency. It’s really just a bump-in at :06 seconds, and as self-reflexive a project as I’ve ever done. We got the opportunity at the last minute, and designer/animator Darrin Isono and I had to think fast.

We were already working on another campaign for Dead Space that had an ink-print component, so we had a bunch of layout odds and ends on hand: cutting mats, X-Actos, T-squares, and whatnot. The concept we pitched the client was basically: Voila! It’s a super-fast agency pitch for the name and logo of the show! And we got the award, using the literal tools of our trade that were already cluttering our desks. It was a deadline-driven solve that captured the manic energy of agency life, while living the #agencylife.