The Clapper

2017 • Netflix
Dir. Dito Montiel

Ed Helms plays Eddie, a man who works as a TV studio audience clapper (yes, that’s a thing). The title sequence features Eddie leaving his Koreatown apartment and walking through different neighborhoods to take a bus down Hollywood Blvd.

We filmed Ed Helms against a greenscreen, and then incorporated him into a hand-painted and mixed-media world.

Additional Animator: Evan Stalker
Matte Painter: Matt Bauer
Additional Roto Artist: Heidi Shon

Special Thanks: Aaron Becker, Seth Kleinberg

Stylistically Related:
Juno • Girl Rising • Sons of Tucson • Splitting Up Together

For this project we developed a mixed media technique we called “vector-paint.” Using live action 4K video clips, we broke the image into dozens of layers, and individually painted each one. The paintings were then re-assembled and composited with portions of the original video clip. The idea was to blur the line between the real shot and the paintings:

Over several weekends, we drove around Koreatown, Hollywood, and Highland Park looking for locations. Over 20 locations ended up in the sequence.

For a background detail, Jenny made quick gouache sketches of the guys, Gareth, Aaron, and Seth:

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