The competition for the best opening credits sequence of 2022 has some promising competitors, but so far, nothing has topped Severance.
Mark is an employee at Lumon Industries who has agreed to separate his memories of work and his personal life. The writing, the performances, the production design, and the credits are all excellent.
The opening of Severance shows the tension between personal life and work life, while taking us on a strange journey through Mark's workday. Mark stumbles through snowy landscapes and lit corporate spaces. They are in time with the score.
Oliver Latta is an artist based in Berlin who works with bodies that are at once grotesque and entrancing. Humans flop out of tubes in Human Paste. In Angry, a figure grinds andgnashes their teeth. Latta's pieces are deeply strange yet still hold traces of familiar.
Latta told Mashable that he enjoys playing with common situations and presenting them in an ambiguous and uncomfortable way.
A trip to the recycling bin is interrupted by a menacing black goop in the opening credits. A mug on an office desk overflows not with coffee, but with hundreds of tiny suited Marks piled one on top of the other.
Credit: Extraweg/AppleTV+
Ben Stiller reached out to Latta because he had seen his work on social media. The first call about the project was in April 2020. Latta received the script of the pilot so he could get a feel for it. Latta referenced the production deck of Severance in order to match its style.
Latta said Stiller gave him a lot of freedom. Some of the opening's most arresting images were created from his prior work. Latta remembers the moment when Mark carried floating duplicate of his own body behind him.
The weird Mark flesh balloon is one of several instances where Mark grapples with the weight of his dual life. Mark's work self and life self are separated by clothing or walls. He can't leave his work self behind here. The shape of his Innie has taken on the shape of the goop from the recycling bin.
Credit: Extraweg/AppleTV+
Latta said that the production process was different than the commercial projects he usually does.
One of the most striking elements of this opening sequence is movement. The motion of the bodies falling from the coffee cup or getting sucked up through a syringe is similar to that of a ragdoll in a video game. When various clones of Mark shamble through a line of elevators, their movements are not as smooth as if they are not fully in control of their limbs. We are in the valley because of these movements and theCGI version of Scott. We are immediately uneasy because we know something is off.
Credit: Extraweg/AppleTV+
The rest of the titles are full of dynamic transitions that draw the eye, like a couch melting down into a ceiling and a small Mark jumping into his own head. Latta was given ahead of time the inspiration to use the music in his animation.
He said that the music was a huge help to define the flow and timing of the sequence.
The opening credits of Severance are a master class in establishing a show's tone and what makes it special. We get a visual representation of the Severance procedure and a primer on the main character's inner conflict, all wrapped up in visuals that evoke corporate sterility and the sinister secret it hides. We are on the edge of our seat and ready to watch more.
There are new episodes weekly on Apple TV+.
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