Clues hidden in The Last of Us credits
HBOFrom The White Lotus to The Last of Us, covert messages are often embedded in iconic TV opening title sequences, writes Clare Thorp.
Carrie Bradshaw in a tank top and tutu getting splashed by a passing bus. Tony Soprano cruising through New Jersey in his Chevy, cigar hanging from his mouth. Mad Men's faceless businessman falling from the sky, past skyscrapers and advertising billboards. A sprawling, mechanical map of Westoros.
Great television shows stick in your memory, but so do their opening credits – and, right now, we're in a golden age for them. See the recent series of The White Lotus, featuring a 90-second-sequence of Italian frescoes packed with metaphors and clues for the series that became as much of a talking point as the show itself – and a theme song that has become an unlikely club anthem. Or Succession's montage of grainy Roy family home-video footage, accompanied by Nicholas Brittell's Emmy-winning score. Or the trippy CGI animation of dystopian workplace drama Severance, a standalone work of art of its own.
Despite the ubiquity of the "Skip Intro" button (which Netflix says its users press 136 million times a day) – or maybe because of it – opening credit sequences are increasingly unskippable. We've come a long way from Dallas's three-way split-screen character shots – as iconic as that was.
As the amount of TV on offer gets increasingly overwhelming, creators and networks want their shows to have a point of difference – right from the beginning. Those 60 seconds at the start of an episode establish a mood, and prepare you for the world you're about to enter.
In the case of The Last of Us, which premiered last month, that world was a post-apocalyptic landscape ravaged by a fungal pandemic which turns much of the population into zombie-like creatures – part human, part terrifying mushroom. An adaptation of a hugely successful video game, the show's set-up was already familiar with many. But for those who'd never played the game, the show's opening credits gave them a few clues.
Various types of fungi slink rapidly across the screen, spreading outwards and upwards, a microcosm of the natural world consuming everything it comes across – beautiful, yet devastating. Look carefully, and you might spot the fungi morph into a map of the US, a city skyline, a screaming face or two human figures – signs of hope in the darkness.
The sequence uses the same music as in the game – written and performed by Gustavo Santaolalla – and the original logo remains, too. But while the show's creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann wanted it to pay homage to the game, they knew they had to draw in a completely new audience. Creative directors Andy Hall and Nadia Tzuo, from design studio Elastic, worked closely with Mazin and Druckmann to create an entry point to the story. "The title sequence informs how we get to this point in time, and shows the unrelenting nature of this organism that just overruns and consumes humanity wherever it goes," Hall tells BBC Culture. "It gives you a sense of what [the protagonists] are up against."
Elastic pitched several ideas, but it was the concept of sprawling, photo-real fungi that captured the attention of Mazin and Druckmann. "They were pretty clear that they envisioned this to be something that's close to the real world," says Hall. The original idea for the game was, after all, inspired by a clip from Planet Earth, in which a fungus takes over the mind of an ant – and the show's opening scene features an epidemiologist on a 1968 talk show speculating about the possibility of fungi one day infecting humans.
In order to design the credits, Tzuo's research involved a deep dive into the fungi world, looking at natural history documentaries, photos and articles in order to make the CG fungi as accurate as possible, not only in looks, but how it grows and moves. "Craig was really into showcasing the variety of all the fungus world," she says. "Then it was about finding ways to utilise the variations in looks and movement of the different species."
They wanted the sequence to have hidden layers, with fleeting motifs and messages that reveal themselves after several watches. "We were really careful about choosing those moments, then having them presented in such a way that you wonder if that was a face you just saw or not."
Within hours of the show's first episode airing, fans were dissecting the credits on social media and in Reddit forums. "The first weekend of it coming out there were all these people breaking down the pieces in it and what they meant," says Hall. "From our point of view, if we can engage the audience and become a talking point, then we've done our part."
The Last of Us credits have already racked up nearly 1 million views on YouTube, though they've got some way to go to reach the 42 million views for The Game of Thrones intro – also created by Elastic. It was that now-iconic opening that helped cement the company's reputation for title sequences – they've since created the credits for shows including The Crown, Westworld, His Dark Materials, True Detective and Pachinko.
"Every day we probably get around three to five enquiries," says Kate Berry, executive producer at Elastic. "All showrunners want title sequences, they fight for them. The title is part of the show, but it's also a marketing tool. It's when people are putting down their phone and getting into the vibe of what they're about to watch. It sets the tone. If it's not right, it can close the door for certain people."
Berry credits Kyle Cooper for helping to reinvigorate TV title credits, with his work on Ryan Murphy's American Horror Story. Cooper previously designed the much-acclaimed opening credits for the film Se7en. "Se7en was huge in the film title world," says Berry. "Now hardly anyone does a main title for films, but Kyle channeled that energy into TV with American Horror Story. It was like, 'remember what a big film title felt like? Well, now we're doing it on the small screen'. After that, I felt like there was a lot of interest again in doing something big for a TV show."
It makes sense that creativity in title sequences was shifting from film to television as TV itself became increasingly cinematic. The Sopranos ushered in the era of prestige TV – and its opening credits set the scene for something special.
"When you think about that title sequence, with Tony driving from New York into New Jersey, establishing his domain, showing exactly where his kingdom lies and the way the camera frames and establishes him as a leader, the kingpin, and as this mysterious figure… it just lent so much gravitas, and gave you so much insight into the situation of the show," says Lola Landekic, editor in chief of Art of the Title, a publication dedicated to title sequence design in TV and film. "It became such an important bridge into the world of the show."
The theme song – Alabama 3's Woke Up This Morning (which the band apparently licensed to the show for just $500) – is now inextricably linked with Tony Soprano, too. "I think whenever anyone hears that song now, it's so impossible to think of it on its own. It has taken on this entire character of the show now," says Landekic. "Something like that can really extend the life of a show and embed it so deeply into viewers' minds that it just creates this deeper appreciation and deeper connection."
Landekic, a graphic designer, has been editor since 2011 of the Art of the Title site, where the mission is "to make people aware of the blood, sweat and tears that goes into these beautiful pieces of art that they experience".
But when there's now the option to skip the intro completely, why are shows still putting so much effort into them? Landekic says the rise of streaming services and sheer amount of TV we have to choose from demands it. "There's a sort of titles arms race to compete for viewers. This branding of the show becomes much more intense, much more important to draw in viewers and maintain that foothold in someone's memory in a field that is so saturated now with product. Ultimately, when you're creating any kind of cultural product, what you're looking for is connection. The branding of that show, or that product, is what gets you there. I think not paying attention to that is a huge mistake."
She says one of the simplest but most effective recent opening sequences are those for Stranger Things. "The design of those titles have spawned jokes memes, generators to create your own version of the titles text. I also really like how American Horror Story has created a fascinating brand around their title sequences which are different for each incarnation."
Watercooler titles
The most successful opening titles engage fans and create conversation – whether that's by catchy theme tunes, arresting visuals or by planting plot-related Easter eggs and hidden messages.
"One of the most powerful things the title sequence can do is be rewatchable," says Landekic. "If it rewards you with repeat viewings because it's loaded with meaning and character and little signals, that's a beautiful feeling. It makes your audience feel like they're part of something."
That's certainly true of the credits for Severance – Apple TV+'s drama, in which employees have a chip implanted in their brain to "sever" their work and home lives. When director and producer Ben Stiller was thinking about the opening credits, he got in touch with an artist he'd seen on Instagram called ExtraWeg – aka Berlin-based Oliver Latta. "It was early 2020, the time when my 3D animations were getting lots of attention on social media" Latta tells BBC Culture. "We found [a message] from Ben Stiller's company, Red Hour. A week later we had our first call."
Latta came up with a captivating animated sequence that follows main character Mark (Adam Scott) as he stumbles from corporate spaces to the outside world and back again, with surreal touches like a mug that overflows with hundreds of tiny, suited Marks. "Ben didn't have any specific treatment in mind. He wanted to have something different and gave me absolute creative freedom," he says. It paid off. Despite it being his first-ever TV title sequence, Latta won the 2022 Emmy for outstanding main title design.
Showrunners are increasingly aware of the impact a great opening credits sequence can have – with some now writing them into the script themselves. Soo Hugh, showrunner on Apple TV+'s intergenerational saga Pachinko, came up with the idea for her joyful title sequence – the show's stars dancing in a pachinko parlour to Let's Live For Today by The Grassroots – early on. "We always said how do you make a title sequence that everyone will watch week to week? This is one they will not skip," she told Variety. "That was really important to us."
Soo wanted the show's opening to feel "exuberant", to balance out some of the series' heavier moments, and she achieved that with a euphoric 80 seconds. "I think that woman would have laid down in front of a truck to have her main title," says Kate Berry of Elastic – who created the credits. "She was like, 'This is how I want it to be'. She had a complete vision for it."
Someone else who desired – and achieved – an iconic opening credits sequence, was James Gunn, showrunner on HBO Max's Peacemaker. "I wanted something in the beginning of this show that was going to be different and fun, and make it clear that we were going to be a different kind of superhero show," he told Rolling Stone. Like Pachinko, Gunner wanted a dance sequence – this time, with John Cena and the rest of the cast dancing to Norwegian glam metal band Wig Wam's Do You Wanna Taste It. After filming, he declared: "It's the greatest opening credits scene of all time."
Yet, however technically impressive a title sequence is, sometimes what makes them stick in our memory is the sheer amount of times we've seen them. Pamela Anderson and David Hasselhoff emerging from the ocean in the Baywatch credits might not have been high art – but you can bet millions of people who came of age in the 90s can recall that theme tune, and the memory of settling down to watch a new episode every week. Likewise with the intro to Friends.
"Everybody has their favourite, or ones they remember," says Landekic. "It's so individual. It's all about what you happen to come across and what happens to strike a chord with you. For me, I was an immigrant child who came to Canada not speaking English, and so I was often just plopped in front of television. I gravitated towards the blue-collar, working-class TV shows that were on a lot of the time, like Married with Children. That title song is tattooed in my brain. Or The Simpsons, which I would say is a touchstone for many people in North America. Cheers, too. There are so many that are still to this day iconic."
Good title credits provide a sense of comfort – and give the viewer an anchor. "The content of the show is always changing and shifting, and characters might come and go. But the title sequence is the safe harbour that you can always come back to in the choppy waters of the show."
Love film and TV? Join BBC Culture Film and TV Club on Facebook, a community for cinephiles all over the world.
If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Culture, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter.
And if you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called The Essential List. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Culture, Worklife and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.