Patrick Clair

Patrick Clair (born c.1983) is an Australian film director and title sequence designer. He has won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Main Title Sequence in 2014 and 2016. He has been nominated in the category twelve times. He is the founder of production and design studio Antibody.

Clair studied screen direction at Queensland University of Technology, graduating in 2002. Following this he completed a Master of Arts: Film, Television and Digital Media at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School.

He directed a series of documentaries for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, many focusing on the intersection of technology and conflict. This included films on robot warfare, DDOS cyberattacks, Wikileak’s Collateral Murder Video and digital privacy. His 2011 film, Stuxnet: Anatomy of a Virus, achieved viral notoriety and was subsequently exhibited by the New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) as part of their Design and Violence series. It has since become a key example of motion infographics from the era.

In 2012 Clair collaborated with Brookings Institution on a film, Big Bets and Black Swans, for the White House outlining the risks facing President Obama’s foreign policy in his second term.

In 2014 Clair worked with frequent collaborator Raoul Marks to create the title sequence for HBO series, True Detective. The sequence went on to win the 2014 Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Main Title. Clair described the sequence as creating “broken portraits out of broken landscapes". The sequence is notable for its use of double exposure motifs, Clair has said "Visually, we were inspired by photographic double exposures. Fragmented portraits, created by using human figures as windows into partial landscapes, served as a great way to show characters that are marginalized or internally divided. It made sense for the titles to feature portraits of the lead characters built out the place they lived." Industry sources have said of Clair that "his striking True Detective main titles, which featured silhouettes of the main characters filled with watery images from the series, cemented Clair as a key designer of main titles, an art form all its own in the era of premium TV."

This was the first in a long line of title sequences created by the pair. Their work often contrasts two opposing symbols, such as for American Gods (Religious symbolism and neon lighting) or The Man in the High Castle (American and Nazi iconography). Maria Lewis, a curator at ACMI proffered “the pair are pioneers in the artform and their work has been foundational to the genre of title sequences for prestige television” and “has helped redefine and resurrect title credits as we know them.”

Clair's sequences for Westworld have been nominated for the Outstanding Main Title Emmy Award in 2017, 2018 and 2020. Showrunner Lisa Joy praised the collaboration as creating a "piece of moving art." Austin Shaw, Professor of Motion Design at Savannah College of Art and Design cited Westworld as a peak example of motion design that employed strong emotional engagement, "these images portray the classical motif of the mother and child. This theme is universal to human experience and can evoke powerful feelings of love and vulnerability. However, juxtaposed within the context of artificial intelligence and 3D printing, these images convey additional feelings of threat, fear, and uncertainty."

Series their work has appeared on include: