As we note in our 007 First Light review, IO Interactive’s new game is a remarkable achievement. An 18-hour story arc explores James Bond’s origins with immaculate writing, inventive and mature gameplay, and a respect for the legacy of Ian Fleming’s iconic MI6 agent that’s won over long-time Bond fans as well as gamers.
The ambition is made clear from the very start with the striking 007 First Light opening sequence. With its classic Bond iconography and a soundtrack from Lana Del Ray and David Arnold, the sequence sets the mood for a cinematic experience. I caught up with Andrew Popplestone, Territory Studio’s Global Executive Creative Director, to learn more about how his team approached the assignment.
Crafting the 007 First Light opening credits was the perfection mission for Territory Studio . The agency has experience in games, from cinematics and cutscenes to UI design, as well as in VFX, screen graphics and credits sequences for movies and TV. Its portfolio ranges from HITMAN World of Assassination and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales to movies like Disney’s Maleficent: Mistress Of Evil.
For Andrew, this broad variety of experience has created a “curious collaborative culture”.
“I think it does give us a unique a unique approach. We can build bespoke teams with a lot of cross-pollination from artists in different areas. That means we get this amazing mix of talent and expertise coming together to do something new and unexpected, and we get to collaborate with all sorts of clients, from Denis Villeneuve to the team at IO Interactive.”
This cross-pollination also means the studio has learned to speak the language of clients in different fields.
“It always helps when we’re working on a game sequence that we understand games. We understand the audience and how games companies work. We know what we can lean on, and we know that with any game-ready assets, we might have to do quite a lot of work to bring them up to film production level quality. Game assets tend to be lighter because they need to be, but we might want slightly better definition and more detail in certain areas, and we know we have to do that.”
For 007 First Light, the team also benefited from being huge Bond fans. The project began with research into past sequences to ensure the sequence would fit within the iconic legacy forged over six decades by Maurice Binder, Robert Brownjohn and Daniel Kleinman.
“As graphic designers, we’re crazy Bond sequence fans, going all the way back to the Maurice Binder days,” Andrew says. “The first couple of weeks were really about immersing ourselves back in those sequences, deciding what worked and pulling out our favorite pieces. The tone, typography, pacing were all elements that we really looked at closely.”
Streaming platforms have played a big role in shaping recent trends in credits design, and Bond sequences can be seen as a key influence and touchstone. But they’ve also remained almost a genre in themselves.
“There was suddenly a trend for very crafted sequences, but they started to feel like they were doing the same kind of thing,” Andrew notes. “In the last couple of years, I feel like trends are changing and it’s going towards more mixed media and not always so polished, maybe a little bit more conceptual rather than just beautiful CG shots .
“I think what’s interesting about Bond sequences is that they’ve been their own thing. There’s a certain flavour that transcends any trend. It’s probably the one title sequence out there that can just happily be its own thing and stand apart, and that was great for us because we didn’t need to worry about what anybody else is doing.”
Territory’s team wanted to include references to 007 First Light so that parts of the sequence make sense only after you’ve played it, rewarding repeat viewing. The technical process was similar to that of crafting a sequence for film or TV, but with a crucial difference in where the action shots came from.
“Rather than shoot any elements we might need, we were taking motion capture footage from the game. That meant we could be quite efficient,” Andrew says. “It was an asset that we could pull upon working with the animation team over at IOI. We could say, ‘have you got anything with Bond turning and shooting in a certain way’, so we could make it physically accurate to the character and the nuances of how he moves.”
This blurring of media reflects a something that’s happening in tech as filmmakers increasingly adopt the use of real-time software (see our guide to the best game development software). Territory’s approach highlights the creative advantages of being able to adapt and select tools based on the project rather than thinking about how to adapt a project based to a standardised workflow.
“As tools and technology advance, we’re becoming more empowered as creatives,” Andrew believes. “At Territory, we’re very technology agnostic. We pick the best tools for the job after working out what we want to do and what’s the best way to achieve it.”
In this case, the studio made a lot of use of Houdini, Cinema4D, Maya, Adobe After Effects, Nuke, pretty much a roll call of the best 3D modelling software and best animation software. “It’s a very similar tool set to what we would use in a film pipeline as well as in games.”
“We looked at the classic Bond ingredients and asked where can we could go with them. How can we create the best storytelling but also new and exciting transitions. We wanted the audience to think they know where it’s going, and then it twists and you’re faced with something completely unexpected, but in a way which follows the story and echoes certain elements from the game or the larger themes of duality and Bond’s fated story. We’re presenting those ideas in a unexpected way, and that’s when it becomes really exciting.”
