Saul Bass

Saul Bass(1920-1996) is an American graphic designer that is well known for his work in films and classic logos. He is known for his simple, geometric shapes and their symbolism and has a very distinctive recognisable style. Most of his title sequences consists of bold block colours and shapes. Before Bass became a graphic designer, film posters were very simple in the fact that they consisted of a photographic images of members from the film cast. However, when Bass came into designing, which was during the 1940s, he approached in a very abstract way by not using photographic images and playing around with shapes, silhouettes and colours. He entered to the world of title designs first when he collaborated with Otto Preminger(filmmaker) in which he was creating prints for film ads. He impressed Preminger with his graphic skills and was asked to produce a title sequence for him. From then and on-wards he produced more and more title sequences. Bass is a very inspirational designer and has revolutionised the way people view title credits. He has collaborated with great directors such as Alfred Hitchcock, Stanely Kubric and Martin Scores and has made over 60 title sequences.

                           

A quote of his:-“I want everything we do to be beautiful. I don’t give a damn whether the client understands that that’s worth anything, or that the client thinks it’s worth anything, or whether it is worth anything. It’s worth it to me. It’s the way i want to live my life. I want to make beautiful things, even if nobody cares.” I really like this quote and feel that it connects to me and inspires me.
                                     

Title sequence analysis for 'The Man with the Golden Arm'

This title sequence is simple and bold as it consists of only black and white colour use. Throughout the sequence there is a plain black background with only white text and white lines crossing the frame. The lines crossing the frame creates a cut out effect and appear to be coming in a motion of stabbing giving the connotation of conflict and claustrophobia as the lines are close to each other. At the start of the title sequence, when the white lines first appear, a confusion is created towards the audience as the lines appear randomly but when you watch the sequence till the end you understand that the lines made up an arm, therefore showing that the lines symbolised veins in someones arm. This then gives the rough idea of injecting drugs into veins of the arm(white lines). Immediately the audience is given the impression of this film having a dark unsettling side and leading into a thriller genre. The use of colours, black and white, gives also adds onto the impression of the film being a dramatically genre based. The jazzy non-diegetic sound is highly contrasted to the sequence as the sequence is shown in a more dark and gloomy way however the sound is presented in an up beat way. However the sound does slightly lead to an ironic way as the music can represent to the audience a way the character feels when being injected by drugs. The jazz music also gives the response of the film being based around the early 1920's near the American gangster era as around that time jazz music was the most popular one.