Getting the movie off to a good start

Garson Yu

Title designer who operates his own company, yU+co

Current projects: “The Last Shot,” “Wicker Park,” “First Daughter.”

Setting the tone for “Last Shot”: “I was invited to a screening and saw the film in the cutting room. After that, I came back to writer-director Jeff Nathanson and proposed that it would be a good idea to create a journey of a coin within a movie theater -- an interesting kind of journey in the landscape itself, to discover trash and other objects in the theater.”

These things take time: “ ‘The Last Shot’ was a good three-month project. To design it was four to six weeks because we had to do all the props and custom-make all the fabrics and build the stage. It took seven days to shoot, and then another four weeks to composite it all together -- edit and do the visual effects. In fact, the coin is a computer-generated quarter. A designer needs to understand designing the concept, designing the storyboards, [using] the camera and shooting visual effects. Fortunately, I have a design team working with me. Usually on each project, I have one or two designers working with me in generating storyboards, creating elements and stuff like that. I will be leading the project with two other designers.”

Speaking of coins: “The budget is always low [for title designs] because they spend most of the money [on the production]. They will not budget a title sequence most of the time. After they finish shooting they will realize they need a title sequence to set the tone, so they will go up to the studio and ask for money. Good title designers need to think about something that is simple and effective instead of needing very big budgets.”

Credits: “Catwoman,” “The Terminal,” “The Chronicles of Riddick,” “Peter Pan,” “Something’s Gotta Give,” “I Am Sam.”

Age: 42

Resides in: San Gabriel.

Mentor: “You won’t believe it -- Bruce Lee. It is about his philosophy about being flexible and adaptable. Bruce Lee is my hero -- always.”

Background: “I studied graphic design and fine art at Yale University School of Art. After I graduated, I came down to New York to do [fine] art for a living and be an artist. Unfortunately, it was much more difficult than I thought. I started doing some freelance work at R/Greenberg Associates in New York. They did movie titles, and that’s where I learned. What I did first was setting type, setting the end crawls [of the movies]. Then I got involved in some design projects and started to learn how to do storyboards. After four years in New York, I moved to Los Angeles. I started my company six years ago.”

Problem solving: “ ‘Mission: Impossible 2’ -- that process was very, very difficult, but we managed to get through it. I learned a lot from that experience. We started on the process very early, and we were working with [director] John Woo on the opening and then the studio.... They were changing the tone of the beginning so we would have to redo the titles. Later on, Tom Cruise was involved in the process as well. So trying to incorporate both Tom’s and John’s ideas and going back and forth -- and the schedule getting tighter and tighter. It was a tough mission, but it turned out really nice.”