Dan Savage: The Poker Club

I wasn't sure which artist to write about but the thumbnail for The Poker Club title sequence caught my attention. Dan Savage, the artist behind this sequence, went to school at Purchase College in NY and studied more traditional art but had a love for animation so he taught himself After Effects outside the classroom. I think that it's possible to master After Effects via following tutorials constantly and experimenting with the vast effects and possibilities on AE. However, this must've taken Savage years to master and an insane amount of patience and dedication. When asked about The Poker Club title sequence, Savage responded, ""There was practically no budget...I art directed, designed, and animated the entire thing with the exception of the 3D chips. I rented the exact gun model from the film and hired Eric Wagliardo to help photograph it. The titles were designed for HD 1080p, so to get the extreme close ups on the card elements I went through the tedious process of scanning in the cards, cutting out the parts I liked, printing, photocopying each part like 20 times to get the nice texture, then scanning each part in to piece it together for animation. It was a lot of late nights and weekends." The creative process behind this opening sequence is amazing and the sequence itself is quite mesmerizing. Savage created a title sequence that immediately engages viewers without giving too much away. Savage hints that the movie will involve poker and then draws your attention with the perfectly animated gun and then to top it off, he fades out the sequence with blood dropping on the cards. I think this sequence works well and I want to see the movie now.

CHECK OUT SOME MORE OF HIS WORK AND TUTORIALS HERE