Crafting a dramatic landscape of quilted illustrations, the motion design team at Aspect captures the poignancy of key moments in director Blitz Bazawule’s feature film musical version of The Color Purple with these end titles.

Jon Berkowitz: “Having previously worked with Warner Bros on Shazam! Fury of the Gods, Crazy Rich Asians, Game Night and many other films, we were thrilled to be invited to pitch on the main on end title sequence for The Color Purple.

“Upon screening the film, we realized the sequence, placed immediately after the poignant final scene, would have a particularly important job. In our approach, the sequence would be a moment of reflection for the audience that allowed them to revisit their favorite moments and themes from the film in graphic form.
 

“In our approach, the sequence would be a moment of reflection for the audience that allowed them to revisit their favorite moments and themes from the film in graphic form.”

 
“But with what brush should we paint that narrative? Our associate creative director Nolan Borkenhagen noticed that quilts were prominently displayed in the production design throughout the film. This would become our housing device for the graphic vignettes.

“Alongside several other approaches, we pitched our quilts concept to director Blitz Bazawule and film editor Jon Poll who both loved the concept and execution. Upon winning the pitch, several questions remained – What vignettes would the sequence portray? Should the sequence be made up of individual shots, or should the sequence be a single, unbroken camera move?

“After several rounds of thumbnails and experiments, we realized simple shapes would work best, and more literal imagery would help the audience recall their favorite scenes and emotions more readily. Upon receiving creative approval on the line art, the illustrations were brought into Photoshop where fabric textures and patterns were applied. This Photoshop art was then brought into Z-Brush where the 3D quilts were sculpted and individual stitches were added.

“Meanwhile we animated our virtual camera into an elegant single shot desired by director Blitz Bazawule. Editor Jon Poll did some offline re-timing of the sequence as the music cue changed throughout, which we then matched in After Effects as we did our final compositing of the sequence.”
 
 

 
Client: Warner Bros
Director: Blitz Bazawule
Editor: Jon Poll
Post Production Supervisor: Leslie Rodier

Production: Aspect
Creative Director: Jon Berkowitz, Brad Colwell
Associate Creative Director: Nolan Borkenhagen
Kimberly Tang – Designer
Ally Baldwin – Designer
Ross MacDonald – Illustrator
Andrew Covell – Illustrator
Crystal Deones – Sr Producer
Robin Roepstorff – 3d Animation
Diego Sefarian – 3d Animation/Modelling

Composer/Producer: Terius Gesteelde-Diamant
Producer: Kuk Harrell
Music: “Superpower” from The Color Purple soundtrack
Singer: Fantasia Barrino