The One Show

The One Show is the world's most prestigious award show in advertising and design. For over 50 years, the Gold Pencil has been regarded as one of the top prizes in the creative industry. The One Show has a rich legacy of honoring some of the most groundbreaking ideas, created by some of the most remarkable minds in creativity.

2023 One Show - Moving Image Craft & Production

The White Lotus - Season 2 Main Title Sequence

Agency Plains of Yonder / Seattle

Client HBO

Category

Title Sequences

Annual ID

OS23_MI043B

About the Work

“The White Lotus" Season Two Main Title Sequence is a lavishly-painted, operatic romp straight through the soul of the show. A series of richly detailed frescos hold endless stories of romance, carnal lust, lonely hearts, and potential doom.

Showrunner Mike White discovered Trompe-l'œil frescoes in a Sicilian villa where they filmed scenes for Episode 3. These striking images became the understructure for our title work, and drew a clear connection to our “wallpaper” concept of Season One.

We conceived the main title sequence as a journey of abundance and over-indulgence, Italian style. Working in lockstep with Cristobal Tapia de Veer’s score, the sequence begins with the best of romantic intentions, but as it progresses, a more primal force takes over, and things begin to devolve.

While high resolution stills of the villa’s walls served as a foundation, we significantly augmented with new storylines befitting a “bedroom farce.” Creating original scenes and re-imaging others, we painted, and animated to bring forth humor, romance, tragedy, jealousy, and the profane; mirroring the show themes.

We mined the scripts to develop scenarios for each cast and crew member, that highlighted an aspect of their demeanor, story arc, or revealed the character’s inner world. Countless clues hide within the paintings, revealing more meaning with each episode viewed.

These newly imagined storylines were challenged in their need to comingle with the 16th century landscapes. We also recombined elements from the paintings and put them in new settings. Illustrator Lezio Lopes, continuously discovered ways to digitally paint new people, animals, architecture, and landscaping in a way that blended into the historic.

We opted for minimum animation and visual effects, adding only small lighting touches and motion. The result was a portal to the show that collided centuries-old art with the digital to create something both provocative and beautiful.

2023 Awards

Total Points: 9

Credits

Design Firm

Plains Of Yonder / Seattle

PR / Marketing Agency

cwpr | carrie wick public relations / Los Angeles

Illustrator

Lezio Lopes

Producer

Paul Williamson

For HBO: Series Created, Directed, & Written By

Mike White

For HBO: Series Executive Producer

David Bernad
Mark Kamine
Mike White

MUSIC COMPOSER

Cristobal Tapia de Veer
Kim Neundorf

Publicist

Carrie Wick

Visual Effects & Animation

Cian McKenna

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