Oscar-winning documentarian Alex Gibney had his Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief debut on HBO on March 29. And opening the documentary was a title sequence from New York-based VFX studio Artjail. Gibney and Jigsaw Productions enlisted Art Jail to work on different aspects of the documentary. The opening sequence drew viewers right into the mysterious inner world of Scientology by depicting its peculiar “auditing” process. Artjail shot live-action footage and created the type design for the sequence.
“Working closely with Alex and his team, Artjail was responsible for giving vision to the filmmaker’s ideas,” said Arthur Portnoy, executive producer at Artjail. “We created a simple, elegant visual language for a film featuring a complex story spanning many years, many themes and many characters, both famous and not. There was a lot of collaboration in terms of how the type, graphics and animations looked and worked in the film until everyone was satisfied we had hit the right notes. In the end, it was well worth the effort.”
Using stock footage, CG and 2D elements, Artjail also created the animations for the film’s “Myth of Creation” sequence, which is narrated by Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard himself. The animated footage is layered, creating a surreal and bizarre set of images that serve as a visual interpretation of Hubbard’s sci-fi explanation for how the world was created. Impressionistic imagery was used throughout different parts of the film to illustrate some of the strange rituals and circumstances in which featured church members found themselves. These shots were filmed by Artjail creative director Steve Mottershead over a two-day shoot using Phantom and Bolex cameras.
Artjail also worked on additional short animations, titles and graphics found throughout the film, as well as treating a number of archival still photographs. All in all, the studio executed 80 shots in the film, helping provide the work with its unified look and feel.
