There’s much to like about Stephen Cobert’s Late Show that debuted last September, starting with the opening credits. The visuals are hard to describe, a video flyover of New York scenes, modified using techniques that make the images look like a combination of miniatures and a color saturated drawing, slightly out of focus at the edges to give a dream-like feeling.

Many different inexpensive and free image editing programs allow amateurs like me to play with the technique (like one of my pretty lame attempts at the right) but it takes real artistry to create the 45 seconds that open Colbert’s program every night.

Now the show has released a longer, “director’s cut” version of the opening video 1I’d embed the video here but CBS is rather old school and doesn’t believe in sharing. with about 90 seconds of unreleased footage. As a bonus, it’s backed by the full version of the show’s wonderful jazz-funk musical theme. Go. Watch. Enjoy.

And I’ll go back to playing with my software.