Kyle Cooper

 Kyle Cooper

Kyle Cooper is a modern designer of motion picture title sequence. He studied graphic design at Yale University and took his path from there. Earlier in his profession, he worked as a create director at R/GA which is an advertising agency. At this time, Kyle Cooper created the title sequence for the American crime film 'Se7en' (seven) which was in 1995 and this caused an uproar. His work on Seven inspired many young designers. Cooper then went on to do many more work for films/music videos and even commercials.

(This is a clip to an interview with Kyle Cooper and he talks about his work in the film 'Seven'. It's really interesting to see how he visualises his work and how he feels, from an audience's perspective, is what they want to see and how he wants to achieve this: http://www.watchthetitles.com/articles/00170-kyle_cooper_interview_pt_1_2. You can also click on all his different works on this website) 

Cooper co-founded 'Imaginary Forces' with Peter Frankfurt and Chip Houghton - this came out of the West Division of R/GA. As Cooper became more involved with the company for the business-side of things, he wanted to travel the route of designing. He left 'Imaginary Forces' and in 2003 he founded the creative agency Prologue.

This is some of his most well-known work (films) over the past 9 years:

Immortal Beloved (1994)

Braveheart (1995)

Seven (1995)

The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996)

Flubber (1997)

Mimic (1997)

Arlington Road (1999)

The Mummy (1999)

Zoolander (2001)

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (2001)

Spider-Man (2002)

Dawn of the Dead (2004)

Spider-Man 2 (2004)

Godzilla: Final Wars (2004)

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (2004)

The New World (2005)

Superman Returns (2006)

Across the Universe (2007)

Iron Man (2008)

The Incredible Hulk (2008)

Tropic Thunder (2008)

Orphan (2009)

Sherlock Holmes (2009)

Tron: Legacy (2010)

A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

The Walking Dead (2010)

Arthur (2011)

Cooper has also done commercials for: Apple, Canon and Coca Cola, as well as doing music videos for bands like 'The Black-eyed Peas'.

Cooper shows common elements and themes through his work. He likes to have a lot of movement in his work such as 360 views around objects, he also likes to build up and layer a lot of his work on screen and this looks effective due to the frame looking filled and built up so that it looks really interesting. Shapes and lines occur in a lot of his work which make it look clean and striking and again, very interesting. You can see how much time he spends on his work as it's so detailed and it's so visually appealing to an audience and this is why he is so popular and idolised because his work is so pleasing to viewers.

FACTS

• He claims his greatest influence in his choice of profession (i.e. title designer) is Stephen Frankfurt's opening title sequence for To Kill a Mockingbird in 1962.
• Cooper now oversees a ninety-person team.
• Andrea Codrington wrote a biography about him; the book called 'Kyle Cooper'. She claims that Kyle Cooper is an essential reading for anyone engaged with graphic design, film, and visual communication.

• He has been nominated 6 times for a Primetime Emmy and won one in 2006 shared with Hal Honigsberg for 'Outstanding Short Form Picture Editing'.

 Kyle Cooper's demo reel on youtube: