The series follows three suburban Michigan mothers, two of whom are sisters, who are having a hard time trying to make ends meet. They are tired of having everything taken away from them so they decide to pull off an unlikely heist by robbing a supermarket, only to discover that they are in for more than they expected. Their successful robbery attracts the attention of the store manager after he recognizes one of the women, but for a different reason altogether than just the money.
Since the show is about family, mothers, and money, it would be suitable for this title sequence to focus on a family gathering scene.
The whole setup would be on a picnic table or a backyard table. Because all three women have kids in the family, the theme will be sweet and family-centered as the primary tone. It would be a lot of cups, snacks, and food that kids like on the table. However, the tablecloth(or under all the items) would be a patterned, illustrated map, which is the plan of the robbery in the show.
The camera of this title sequence will be focusing on the little details that are expected and unexpected: three coffee cups together (as these three women always stick with each other), but when the camera changes the angle, these women are hiding some little alcohol bottles; there are cupcakes or cake boxes around, but wind comes, some money is in the box; there are toys around, and in the middle, a toy gun with sharpie painted black tip.
After few tries, I find that the simplest and most efficient way to tell the story is to draw the story with the credits on paper. Â Â
The setup of the scene is likely a family party, but full of the drawing of the story, money, and a gun in the middle of everything. Â Â
I choose to setup the scene in the bedroom with two different color of lights to balance the light system. Also a phone shelf to stable the camera movement. By the way, the whole film was shot from an Iphone 11. There is the process of setup:
Overview of the setup:
As for the drawings on plates, I used many reference pictures and the relations between actors and the title names. The drawings are made from Procreate from iPad pro. And I chose a pencil textured brush to mimic the hand-drawing texture.
Here is some closeup:
This project was also very challenging for me. Usually, I use illustration to present my ideas, but mainly through a computer, never used the camera to present. So simple camera movement could take few hours for me to understand and utilize in my camera movement. Also, I am not an expert on photographs, so the process of using the iPhone to achieve some depth of field was quite a job. Thanks to the filter's invention, a fake depth of field could be made without the extra camera added.
