Directors Katrina Crawford and Mark Bashore at Seattle studio Plains of Yonder offer an insightful peek at the process behind their rodent-infested titles for the new Kathleen Jordan Netflix comedy series The Decameron.

Anchored in the rat-borne pestilence of the 14th century and fueled by a score from British film composer Ruth Barrett, the sequence was created in collaboration with Barcelona motion house Makmac who also worked with Plains of Yonder on the standout titles for Amazon’s Rings of Power.

Katrina Crawford and Mark Bashore: “A storm of mischievous, hand-inked rodents swarm and scatter to tell stories of desire, escape, sickness, hope, desperation, prayer, and re-birth – all in the face of impending death.
 

“The process was slow, unprecedented, wildly experimental, highly vulnerable to revisions, technically unrealistic, financially questionable, and generally problematic on most other fronts.”

 
“It all came together through uncommon bedfellows; hand-drawn animation combined with cutting edge particle and 3D work. An intrepid team of artists from Seattle, Barcelona, The Hudson Valley, and Chicago came together to experiment, break, scratch, fail, code, claw, and ultimately meld a miracle of craft spanning hundreds of years of techniques.

“The process was slow, unprecedented, wildly experimental, highly vulnerable to revisions, technically unrealistic, financially questionable, and generally problematic on most other fronts.

“But the rats sprung to life, the team stayed undaunted and tireless, our wonderful client remained ever-trusting, the track composer sublime, and together we created a main title that looks. moves, sounds, and most importantly, feels like nothing else on television.”

Watch the finished titles:
 

 
 

 
Client: Netflix

Production: Plains Of Yonder
Directors: Katrina Crawford. Mark Bashore
Concept/Story: Katrina Crawford
Executive Producer: Paul Williamson
2D Animation Lead/Animator: Harry Teitelman
Character Designer/Illustrator/2D Animator: Torin Bashore
3D Production: Makmac
Lead 3D Artist/3D Animator: Mauro Gimferrer
3D Artist/3D Animator: Marcos Coral
3D Artist/3D Technical Director: J.A. Duran
Style frames/Compositing/Backgrounds/Typography/Color: Jason Esser
Additional 2D Animation: Barbara Benas
Editor: Mark Bashore

Music: Ruth Barrett