Set in a bucolic but sinister small town in Vermont, WAYWARD is a genre-bending Netflix series about "the insidious intricacies of the troubled teen industry, and the eternal struggle of the next generation" (IMDb).
I wanted the opening title card to set a jarring, foreboding tone.
The sequences were designed to feel raw and corrupted, like a memory that’s been mishandled or reshaped by force. I was heavily inspired by the chaos and DIY spirit of my teenage art-making years, and I unearthed old art and photography techniques from the 90s and early 2000s — including polaroid emulsion lifts, pigment transfers, and aggressive analogue experiments.
I want to give a massive shout-out to Netflix and the show creators for their support as I dove headlong into crafting the main titles in an unusual analog fashion. They gave me the trust and space I needed to create work I am extremely proud of, for a show and people I deeply admire.
I began by compositing our typography with in-show footage, then printed each frame to Polaroid and manipulated them in real time using heat, pressure, and chemical processes. The transformation was captured on an overhead camera rig, re-digitized, and reworked through VFX.
Each version broke differently — no two reactions were the same. I leaned into this process and developed a different treatment for each of the 8 episodes. I liked how that mirrored the narrative: the same treatment applied again and again, with wildly different outcomes.
Arriving at the final episode, the question that was asked was: how unhinged can we make it?
The response: FULL SEND.
See below for a montage of all 8 episode Main Titles, followed by a peek at the process and a gallery of final frames.
MAIN TITLES MONTAGE
BEHIND THE SCENES
Episode 101 "Tall Pines"
Episode 102 "Burrow"
Episode 103 "Break"
Episode 104 "Mud"
Episode 105 "Build"
Episode 106 "Mirror"
Episode 107 "Ascend"
Episode 108 "Leap"
