“[Main title sequences are] a way in, and a way to separate where you’re headed from where you’ve been,” says main title director Chet Hirsch. “I love that idea of it serving as an overture, and trying to make it [so] you really enjoy how you reach this story that you’re ready to see.”
Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities is an anthology series of eight unique modern horror stories, each with a new director. Since a cabinet filled with stories is the premise of the series, the cabinet itself became the basis for the main title.
“The cabinet of curiosities is a cabinet that holds lots of little objects that have stories, in the same way that the show is an anthology and it holds different stories inside,” says main title creative director Mike Schaeffer. “It made sense to make [the main title] an on-the-nose reference to this cabinet, but also it was so much more than that and it was kind of unexpected.”
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The main title sequence begins with a cabinet warping and expanding as it opens to reveal an assortment of strange objects. As the pair discussed the idea for the sequence with del Toro, Hirsch says they all latched onto the idea of recursion. “The idea that you move through the door and you’re gonna find yourself in a different space, but a related space and there’s no way to leave,” he says. “Scale might shift, the laws of physics, up and down – all these things become relative as you go deeper.”
As the viewer goes deeper into the cabinet, Schaeffer’s priority was to make sure there were enough details to draw you in every time. This involved a lot of research into historical cabinets of curiosities and the items that could be found inside. “The team nailed that in terms of making sure the repeatability is there,” he says. “You don’t get bored of seeing it every time. There’s always something new when you watch it.”
Click the video above to watch the full interview.
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