Title sequence analysis - Saul Bass: Prada Nayars work

This is a member of my groups work, from her analysis of Saul Bass I can conclude that Bass used the storyline to create the title sequence, to give a innovative and attention grabbing title sequence. This is something we will put into place in are own work, as I think it makes the opening sequence more powerful and interesting, so therefore it will seem as if there is a real film to be watched after our title sequence:Saul Bass was an American graphic designer and Academy Award winning film maker, best known for his design of motion picture title sequences and film posters.

During his 40- year career Bass worked for some of Hollywood's most prominent filmmakers, including Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder and Martin Scorsese. 

Bass became widely known in the film industry after creating the title sequence for Otto Premminger's The man with the golden arm (1955). The subject of the film was a jazz musician's struggle to overcome his heroin addiction, a taboo subject in the mid-1950s. Bass decided to create an innovative title sequence to match the film's controversial subject. He chose the arm as the central image, as it is a strong image relating to heroin addiction. The titles featured an animated, white on black paper cut-out arm of a heroin addict. As he hoped, it caused quite a sensation.



For Alfred Hitchcock, Bass provided effective, memorable title sequences, inventing a new type of kinetic typography, for North by Northwest (1959), Vertigo (1958), and Physco (1960). It was this kind of innovative, revolutionary work that made Bass a revered graphic designer. Before the advent of Bass’s title sequences in the 1950s, titles were generally static, separate from the movie, and it was common for them to be projected onto the cinema curtains, the curtains only being raised right before the first scene of the movie.

“For the average audience, the credits tell them there’s only three minutes left to eat popcorn. I take this ‘dead’ period and try to do more than simply get rid of names that film goers aren't interested in. 

I aim to set up the audience for what’s coming; 

make them expectant.”

— SAUL BASS