Man is the cruelest animal…except for Patrick Clair.

Have you heard of Australian designer Patrick Clair, and his company Antibody? Whether or not you have, you’ve definitely seen the work of him or of his company. Creating several promotional material for shows and companies such as The Blacklist, Halt And Catch Fire, Tom Clancy’s The Division, Ghost Recon: Phantoms, Assassin’s Creed: Unity, and most recently the official commercial for the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards.

However he is probably best known as the director of True Detective’s dark and stunning opening titles which in fact won him the award for “Outstanding Main Title” at the 2014 Emmy Awards. Being my third favorite show from 2014 (right behind The Walking Dead and Breaking Bad) and hearing about the new casting for it’s upcoming second season, I decided to take a look into the making of what some people have called the best opening title sequence they’ve ever seen.

Combining all kinds of elements and techniques ranging from 3D models and layer composting, the making of this intro isn’t as simple as it looks.

“The show is set in Louisiana in the ’90s, with a strong presence of the petrochemical infrastructure and the pollution of the physical landscape. We read scripts for the first three episodes before even considering the visual execution. Story is always the most fundamental part of our design process, so it was great getting a good understanding of the writing before we began to explore visual ideas” – Patrick Clair