After supporting Nitehawk Cinema’s Shorts Festival as an in-kind sponsor in its first two years, Nice Shoes has expanded on its relationship with the Brooklyn-based theatre to produce an opening sequence for the 3rd annual festival, which takes place November 10-15th. For more on the festival, click here. Nice Shoes Creative Studio creative director James Coulson developed an animated narrative deconstructing Nitehawk’s brand elements to craft a story that subtly referenced the history of cinema.

The Creative Studio established the scene with the Nitehawk bird as the hero of the piece, with the bird rendered in black against the brand’s bold yellow, in a story of predator VS prey.  

“The idea was to twist what we assume to be prey - like a snake or worm - and build to a drama between our hero and it’s enemy trying to snatch the prey from its clutches,” explained Coulson. “Just as the enemy gets to our hero, our hero pulls out what we thought was prey to reveal a film strip. We then create a zoetrope effect that references where film and animation began and allows us to transform the Nitehawk Cinema logo into the Nitehawk Shorts Festival logo. Finally, we then created a swarm of birds that build into the Nitehawk’s ‘film reel’ logo.”

The animated sequence features sound design by Nylon Studios, who created an atmosphere that augments the animalistic actions of the hawks while slowly introducing the theatrical setting.

“Our hope with this piece was to celebrate the short, but impressive, history of Nitehawk,” added Coulson. “They’ve been so successful at building a passionate community dedicated to great cinema with their curation of films, and at inspiring the next generation of filmmakers with this festival.”

Nice Shoes will also continue their support of the festival’s filmmakers, awarding a color grading package to the winning filmmaker, for use in crafting a future project. Previous winners have included director Eleanor Wilson, who redeemed her prize to collaborate with colorist Gene Curley on “Everything All At Once,” which was featured on the Sundance Channel’s website; and director Christopher Hawthorne, who won with his film “Bender” at last year’s festival.