Bettr. Strongr. Fastr.
The Six Million Dollar Man title sequence is collective consciousness fodder for an entire generation. In a mere 90 seconds (remember these were 1970’s seconds – they moved much more slowly), we witnessed future spaceflight vehicles, a disastrous and riveting rocket crash, and the thrilling resurrection of man through the miracle of technology! Star Wars may get all the credit, but anyone who actually had to survive a 70’s childhood knows that Steve Austin was WAY cooler than Luke Skywalker. And he was there for us every week.
The DVD Bonus features for 6MDM Season One contain an awesome little featurette entitled An Iconic Opening. It’s a short and instantly satisfying tribute featuring all the back room, behind-the-scenes guys explaining their parlor tricks in great, wizard-like detail.
Jack Cole, Main Title Director for The Six Million Dollar Man explains his approach:
This was before Google, before Apple existed as a company…before Microsoft existed, computers were nothing more than a hobby item for a couple of nerds. Basically, regular people hadn’t even heard of home computing. So, with that context in mind, I had to create what became a world that would make more sense existing today.
And I did that with layered imagery…my idea was, I wanted someone to watch this show over and over again and still discover something new in the opening sequence. So I had no less than four or five images going on simultaneously.
With the running…I put two separate speeds together to create an unreal sense of speed…he was going in slow motion, but the images were passing in very fast motion (by this I assume Cole is referring to cutting quickly between the sped-up footage and the slomo stuff)…this created a unique feeling.
Unique? Damn, it was AWESOME.
What I love about this is that Cole recognized that people are smart. They don’t just numbly stare at whatever you put in front of them, they look at the different layers and feel things. And depending on their mood, the time of day, or whether they have a dentist appointment that morning, they never see and feel the same thing the same way twice.
Cole used this insight and some stock footage to create one of the baddest-ass (bad assest?) TV show intros of all time.
As a graphic designer, I work in layers every day, ceremonially manipulating this and that to achieve a pleasing and (hopefully) intelligent effect. It’s a basic toolbox that I take for granted, though without it my work would suffer immeasurably.
Cole’s elemental explanation of that incredible 90 seconds is an inspiration, and a great reminder; there are always creative problems to solve and there are always limitations. Remember your audience, and never underestimate – or undermine – their ability to interpret things for themselves.
The image posted above is a fake movie poster I made. I wish it weren’t, because that’s a movie I wanna SEE. After watching the interview with Cole, I thought it would be fun to play with some of those thematic layers; the encephalographic readouts, bionic terminal copy, radar blips and bleeps, and of course, the amazing image of Steve Austin running toward us with what appears to be several garage door openers strapped to his body.
You can download a wallpaper-sized version of the image here. Enjoy!
