Grease (1978)

“It doesn't matter if you win or lose, it's what you do with your dancin' shoes.” — Vince

In Grease, the film’s recent past is a three-and-a-half minute prologue. Like Happy Days, it’s the 1950s filtered through a 1970s aesthetic. Lumpy and loose, it feels like low-budget animation, as though deliberately unpolished — think Schoolhouse Rock!

The opening title sequence animation was created by British-born John Wilson and his studio Fine Arts Films. The look of the opening reflects the limited animation style many commercial studios were producing in the 1970s, Seneca College animation history instructor Jim Zub explains, with 6 to 12 drawings per second (which was called "shooting on twos" or "shooting on fours") and simple character designs to speed up production. “The shaky lines and broad caricatures reflect the kind of art a talented high school student would produce for their yearbook, channeling the high school musical's demographic quite well,” Zub says. “The look is relatively simple in terms of style and lacks the elegant figure work or delicate self-trace lines you'd see in Disney feature animation, but Wilson makes up for it with charm and energy that fits the film to a tee.”

It’s worth a second (and third) look because it’s rich in visual clues and social history details that situate the action…

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from Art of the Title http://ift.tt/2ri58ES