Bristol Boys
Feature Film Title Sequence, 2004
- Role
- Title design & animation
- Target
- A main-title sequence that puts a feature audience inside a Connecticut drug-ring bust before the first scene plays
- Constraints
- 2004 · independent feature · no title budget — the sequence was shot with “props” borrowed from the production studio the designer was living in
- Force fielded
- Nick Charney Kaye — title design and animation; Brandon David — writer/director
- Time-to-dispatch
- Sequence delivered 2004; the feature released in 2006
- Result
- Main titles delivered for a released feature starring Will Janowitz, Max Casella, Dean Winters and David Zayas — Bristol Boys on IMDb
- Principal
- Bristol Boys — written & directed by Brandon David
While working and living in the production studio, Nick Charney Kaye borrowed some “props” to make the title sequence for this film about a huge drug ring bust.
Bristol Boys is a 2006 film written and directed by Brandon David. Shot in Bristol, Connecticut and Springfield, Massachusetts, the film is based on one of biggest drug busts of Connecticut’s Statewide Narcotics Task Force, including the arrest of David’s longtime friend Kevin Toolen in 2001. Will Janowitz and Max Casella of The Sopranos fame star in the film, as do Dean Winters and David Zayas from Oz.
Source material: one of the largest busts run by Connecticut's Statewide Narcotics Task Force.
Locations: Bristol, Connecticut · Springfield, Massachusetts.
Cast in the cards: Will Janowitz · Max Casella · Dean Winters · David Zayas.
Art department: whatever was in the production studio, after hours, on the honor system.
Title design & animation: Nick Charney Kaye.
What a main title is for
A main-title sequence is a contract with the audience: this is the world, this is its temperature, and these are the names who are responsible. On a studio picture that contract gets a budget. On an independent crime film it gets whatever the designer can find in the building — which, when the designer is living in that building, turns out to be a usable amount.
The constraint pushed the sequence toward the right register anyway. A film about a small-city narcotics ring does not want a glossy title; it wants something that looks assembled, handled, a little illicit — objects photographed under available light rather than rendered. Borrowed props are not a compromise on a picture like this one. They are art direction with an alibi.
Same shelf, same years: the Reservoir title sequence, and the 2006 demo reel that logs this era at 00:41 TITLE SEQUENCES.
Unapologetic specificity, per the manifesto — and a willingness to confuse before it comforts. A title sequence is thirty seconds of authorship handed to a stranger who came for something else. Spend it saying exactly what the picture is, in the picture’s own materials, and let them adjust.
Proof: the title sequence on Vimeo · Bristol Boys on IMDb · the 2001 bust it’s drawn from.
