Elementary – Opening Credits Kinetic Elements

If you've watched the opening credits of the CBS television series Elementary, you've seen some of my work.

I created several of the rolling ball and kinetic elements used in the show's Rube Goldberg-style opening title sequence. It started with an email from a producer asking if I could build some rolling ball mechanisms for a “mousetrap” themed sequence they were developing for an upcoming television show.

The funny part was that I didn't know what show I was building them for.

I made a collection of individual stainless steel elements specifically for the shoot and sent them off to the production. Not everything I built made the final cut—including a mechanism made from three sprockets with chains woven through them—but several pieces did, and they became part of the opening credits seen at the beginning of the show.

There is also a much larger piece of my work hiding in plain sight.

At the time, I was building a 6-foot by 6-foot floor-standing rolling ball sculpture. The production needed more machinery in the background, so I shipped the entire sculpture to Florida just for the shoot. During the shot featuring the tall spiral, you can see the full RBS blurred in the background. It's difficult to spot unless you know it's there, but once you do, you can't unsee it. They shipped the sculpture back to me after filming was finished.

This wasn't really a rolling ball sculpture commission in the traditional sense. It was a collection of custom-built kinetic mechanisms created specifically to work as television props—something quite different from my normal projects and a lot of fun to be involved with.

When Elementary eventually aired, I finally got to see where everything had ended up. The show went on for seven seasons, which meant I got the unusual pleasure of seeing pieces I had built in my shop appear on television before episode after episode.

Pretty cool place for some bent and welded stainless steel to end up.

See the article below for the story behind the creation of the Elementary opening sequence, and the raw-elements video for a closer look at the pieces I built.

100% stainless steel and TIG welded.