Why our opening is not a video
Fifteen seconds of motion, written as a function of time.
A video is a fixed rectangle. A browser window is not. A rendered opening would have been letterboxed on a wide-short laptop and tiny on a phone.
Every frame is a function of time
The opening holds no state between frames. Give it a time and it draws that moment. That one rule pays for everything else: pausing is not drawing, skipping is drawing the last moment, and checking a frame means asking for it.
Type that fills up
The letters are a variable font with a width axis. They start thin and condensed, and inflate to full width as if someone were pumping them. The axis has a limit, so any overshoot past it turns into a little scale. You feel it more than you see it.
Two clocks
Backgrounds run continuously. The cobra's laugh steps at twelve drawings a second. That mismatch is much of what stops it looking like a template.
It is allowed to stop
If your system asks for less motion, the film does not play at all. You get the last frame, and a button if you change your mind.
Next: Consistency is a chain