“My initial thoughts about what a title can do was to set mood and the
prime underlying core of the film’s story, to express the story in some
metaphorical way. I saw the title as a way of conditioning the audience,
so that when the film actually began, viewers would already have an
emotional resonance with it” -Saul Bass.
Saul Bass is most wellknown for his work with Hollowood films opening titles.
One of Bass' most famous pieces are the opening titles of Otto Preminger's The Man With the Golden arm. The film tells the story of a jazz musician's struggle to overcome his heroin addiction. Bass had previously worked on Preminger's Carmen Jones film poster. Preminger was so impressed with Bass' work he asked Bass if he could make the opening sequence as well. The potential was obvious and Bass was asked to work on another Preminger's film: The Man With the Golden Arm.
One of Bass' most famous pieces are the opening titles of Otto Preminger's The Man With the Golden arm. The film tells the story of a jazz musician's struggle to overcome his heroin addiction. Bass had previously worked on Preminger's Carmen Jones film poster. Preminger was so impressed with Bass' work he asked Bass if he could make the opening sequence as well. The potential was obvious and Bass was asked to work on another Preminger's film: The Man With the Golden Arm.
Preminger wanted his audience to see The Man with the Golden Arm’s titles as an integral part of the film. Until then, the lists of cast and crew members which passed for movie
titles were so dull that projectionists only pulled back the curtains to
reveal the screen once they’d finished.
The topic of the film was a taboo in the 50s. Bass decided to make the title's to match the controversial subject by making a paper cut arm as a central symbol for the title's. As expected, the title's were a sensation and made Saul Bass the first acknowledged opening title artist and made opening titles an art form.
Saul Bass has a very distinctive graphic style in his animations. For example the titles of Vertigo, Around the World in Eighty Days and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World raise no question about who is behind them. Martin Scorsese once described his approach as creating: "an emblematic image, instantly recognisable and immediately tied to the film"
In the early 50s film publicity was usually based around the celebrity of the actors. Bass instead developed a graphic language which brought together modern design, music and film. One distinctive feature was the reduction of graphic elements to a minimum, as with the simple paper cut-outs used in The Man with the Golden Arm and Anatomy of a Murder.
Saul Bass' style is very symbol oriented. Like in The Man With the Golden Arm Bass took the heroin addict's arm, a very powerful symbol and built the whole graphical style and the storytelling of the titles around it. The symbol was so powerful the opening titles created a new genre of art.
Because of his ability to capture the essence of a film into powerful symbols and minimalistic graphics Saul Bass still remains as one of the most famous if not the most famous opening title designer of all time.
Source:
http://designmuseum.org/design/saul-bass
http://www.saul-bass.com/
http://37signals.com/svn/posts/917-title-sequences-from-saul-bass-the-master-of-film-title-design
The topic of the film was a taboo in the 50s. Bass decided to make the title's to match the controversial subject by making a paper cut arm as a central symbol for the title's. As expected, the title's were a sensation and made Saul Bass the first acknowledged opening title artist and made opening titles an art form.
Saul Bass has a very distinctive graphic style in his animations. For example the titles of Vertigo, Around the World in Eighty Days and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World raise no question about who is behind them. Martin Scorsese once described his approach as creating: "an emblematic image, instantly recognisable and immediately tied to the film"
In the early 50s film publicity was usually based around the celebrity of the actors. Bass instead developed a graphic language which brought together modern design, music and film. One distinctive feature was the reduction of graphic elements to a minimum, as with the simple paper cut-outs used in The Man with the Golden Arm and Anatomy of a Murder.
Saul Bass' style is very symbol oriented. Like in The Man With the Golden Arm Bass took the heroin addict's arm, a very powerful symbol and built the whole graphical style and the storytelling of the titles around it. The symbol was so powerful the opening titles created a new genre of art.
Because of his ability to capture the essence of a film into powerful symbols and minimalistic graphics Saul Bass still remains as one of the most famous if not the most famous opening title designer of all time.
Source:
http://designmuseum.org/design/saul-bass
http://www.saul-bass.com/
http://37signals.com/svn/posts/917-title-sequences-from-saul-bass-the-master-of-film-title-design
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