THE REPORT (2019)

I’m a sucker for tense political thrillers, so you can imagine how excited I was when Pentagram reached out to me to animate the titles and graphics they designed for this excellent film starring Adam Driver and Annette Benning.

As always, it was amazing working with Emily Oberman and her team. I really love the type treatment they came up with, and think it perfectly captures the vibe of the movie. I was also lucky to conspire closely with Todd Goldstein on this project. His initial motion direction was based on old-fashioned tech like microfilm readers, fax machines, and photocopiers, which is right up my alley.

For a film about torture, I had a lot of fun working on these graphics.

One of my challenges was to preserve the minimal aesthetic of the design, and animate it in a way that felt both vintage and still fresh. 1979 seen through the lens of 2019, as it were.

For me this boiled down to interrupting hyper-eased motion curves with small bursts of stationary elements. I had fun stripping down the textures to 1 or 2 frame flashes. It’s amazing to me how much impact they have, despite their length, and I recognize again how easy it is to overdo animated textures.

Finally … because I made this right after directing the Project Blue Book titles, Todd starting referring to me as “Redaction Jackson”.

TITLES and GRAPHICS
Designed by Pentagram
Creative Director: Emily Oberman
Art Director: Todd Goldstein
Animation and Additional Design: Nol Honig
Additional Animation: James Isaaks