yU + co created the main title sequence for the new DreamWorks comedy She’s the Man, delivering a spunky, high energy graphic treatment that gets the film off to a good-humored start.

Directed by Andy Frickman, She’s the Man is loosely based on Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night reworking the romantic tale around a contemporary prep school student with a passion for soccer. yU + co’s design team picked up on the film’s puckish, free-spirited attitude with colorfully grungy graphics that are integrated throughout the opening scene.

“We wanted to portray soccer in the context of a youth subculture and give it an edge?‚àö√ë‚àö√Üwe wanted to brand soccer as the equivalent of skateboarding or surfing,” explained yU + co art director Synderela Peng. “The color palette we chose is very summery and dominated by orange and green.”

“Our designers were given a lot of freedom on this project and they took advantage of it,” added yU + co executive producer Claire O’Brien. “They came up with a high end design that is very modern and appealing.”

The design team created the sequence by directly treating the live action film imagery, applying rough, heavily textured washes of color and typography to the frames and turning them into graphics. “We walked a very fine line,” said Peng. “We didn’t want to interrupt or distract from the flow of the narrative and we didn’t want to obscure the identity of the characters. We looked for moments where the graphic treatment could enhance or punctuate the action that was happening in the scene.”

Although the graphics has a raw almost anarchic feel, they are actually the result of a painstaking design process. “The transitions into and out of the live action required especially careful execution,” said Peng. “It took a lot of manpower from our animation department and they responded with a lot of enthusiasm.”

Credits for yU + co go to Garson Yu, creative director; Claire O’Brien, executive producer; Ryan Robertson, associate producer; Synderela Peng, art director; Nick Baquero, Hiroshi Endo, Scott Pagano, Etsuko Uji and Johnny Wong, 2D artists; Zachary Scheuren, editor/inferno artist.

yU + co is located at 941 N. Mansfield Ave., Hollywood, CA 90038. For more information, call (323) 606-5050.