The simple lines of a staircase morph into a maze and then into a luxurious home’s glass walls in Sarofsky’s main-title sequence for HBO Max’s The Staircase.

“It was always our hope that the main-title sequence would help establish the complicated family dynamics at play while capturing the show’s themes. The sequence does that, but more importantly, by presenting these Escher-like impossible spaces and portraying the interior of the house as a maze – which is constructed and then deconstructed over the course of the sequence – it really presents a lens through which the audience can view the series in a visually exciting way,” said series creator and director Antonio Campos.

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The eight-episode limited series explores the true-crime case of crime novelist Michael Petersen, who called 9-1-1 in 2001 and said that he had found his wife, Catherine, dead at the base of a staircase in their grand North Carolina home.

The facts of this case have been documented in an earlier true-crime miniseries by the same name that aired on various channels around the world in 2004. On May 5, HBO Max premiered a scripted limited series based on that story starring Oscar winner Colin Firth as Michael and two-time Oscar nominee Toni Colette as Catherine, his ill-fated second wife.

To capture the lines of the story, Sarofsky literally turned the house inside out, turning it into a maze that captured people, relationships and their secrets as shadows within transparent spaces.

The Staircase premiered Thursday, May 5 on HBO Max.

READ MORE: Stash Media

CREDITS

Studio: HBO Max

Director: Antonio Campos

Show Runners: Antonio Campos, Maggie Cohn

Producer: Christina M. Fitzgerald

Agency: Sarofsky

Executive Creative Director: Erin Sarofsky

Executive Producer: Steven Anderson

Creative Director: Stefan Draht

Producer: Dylan Ptak

Editor: Tom Pastorelle

Finishing: Cory Davis

3D Animation: Nik Braatz, Andrea Braga, Oskar Fülöp, Dean Ripper, Jake Thomas, Tanner Wickware

Typographer: Cat McCarthy

Concept Development: Andrea Braga, Stefan Draht, Cat McCarthy

Storyboard Artist: Tricia Kleinot

Tags: hbo max hot spots main titles sarofsky the staircase


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