Nirvanna the Band the Show (2017)

“Is it worth risking this kid's life for a chance to play the Rivoli?” — Matt

What do Growing Pains, Home Alone, Daredevil, Entourage, Crank, My Dinner with Andre, and Dog Day Afternoon have in common? Absolutely nothing... That is, until Nirvanna the Band the Show came along.

When co-creators Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol were shooting Viceland’s first ever scripted series, there was one thing that kept the show’s highly improvised plots anchored: the title sequences. Every episode of Nirvanna the Band the Show inserts the main characters into a parody of a familiar opening credit sequence. It’s their way of worldbuilding in a show that can spin off in just about any direction, but sooner or later the choice of opening leads to an “aha” moment within the episode. As consummate consumers of film and TV content, Johnson and the team at Zapruder Films throw in everything from ‘80s sitcoms to retro video games, trashy action flicks and classy art films, letting the viewer make what they will of the insane post-postmodern smorgasbord.

And these are not scrappy versions of the sequences either, but slick, well-produced replicas created completely from scratch, juxtaposing the show’s decidedly DIY aesthetic. Homage is too serious a word, yet to label them as simple parodies doesn’t do them justice either. Nirvanna’s version of the Daredevil opening apes the complex fluid simulation of Elastic’s original, but adds devil sticks and an ill-fitting fedora. Their Entourage opener pins credits to familiar landmarks – swapping Los Angeles for Toronto. Their pixelated Crank sequence needs to be seen at least eight times to process all the mayhem, and their My Dinner with Andre opening switching the continental cuisine of Café des Artistes for the egg rolls and chicken balls of the vaunted Mandarin Chinese buffet.

Every effort is made to make the sequences look and feel like the originals, from navigating fair use law for music rights, to transferring footage to 16mm to make the classic film sequences feel more cinematic. No detail is too small, no reference too obscure. Perhaps none more obscure than the first episode, which is a shot-for-shot recreation of the opening titles from the 2007 web series Nirvanna the Band the Show is based upon.

A discussion with Co-Creators MATT JOHNSON and JAY MCCARROL, Title Designer JOSH SCHONBLUM, and VFX Supervisor TRISTAN ZERAFA.

So going into this project did you always know you were going to do title sequences based on existing ones?

Matt: Yes. For whatever reason that was so important to us when we made the web show. I don’t even know why. I think because the show was trying to play on television tropes and we were such fans of what was on TV. I think we thought it would help us with where the stories would start. This can be like…

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