Artists Behind ‘The White Lotus,’ ‘The Last of Us’ Opening Credits Reveal Hidden Easter Eggs

variety.com:

Jon Burlingame Five of this year’s six nominees for main title design are for shows from the science-fiction, fantasy or horror genres.

Only “The White Lotus” is a conventional drama. But all are imaginative, some even delightful, and all were the product of months of design and production. “When titles are successful, they give an indication of the tone of a show, almost like a book cover,” says Andy Hill, one of six artists nominated for “The Last of Us,” the post-apocalyptic series about a fungus that turns people into zombies.

His talks with executive producers Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, along with considerable scientific research, resulted in the design of constantly growing fungus “grounded in reality, like a nature documentary, but would also at certain points look like an image of a city or a moment that had a relationship to the context of the show.” Gustavo Santaolalla’s guitar, based on his theme for the popular video game, was part of the process, Hill said. “Music was fundamental to how we manifested the visual identity.” “Wednesday,” on the other hand, was “reverse engineered,” says designer Aaron Becker, once his Filmograph team realized that producer Tim Burton wanted it to end with stormy clouds and a moon that becomes the eyes of the youngest of the Addams family siblings. “The sequence functions as a metaphor, a Burton-esque journey through her mind.

What are the morbid thoughts that Wednesday’s having?” he says. Typewriter, cello with knife, spiral staircase, spider, cemetery, guillotine, venus fly-trap, all accompanied by Danny Elfman’s harpsichord-flavored theme, provide a macabre opening for the Netflix series.