Researching into Saul Bass and his graphic designs

Conducted research into SAUL BASS and his pieces:

• Who is he and why is he famous?

Saul Bass was a prominent American graphic designer of the twentieth century. He largely designed motion picture title sequences, corporate logos, and movie posters. He was a pioneer of modern title sequence designing. Bass is best known for his work in film. He started out in the industry doing poster design, first hired by director and producer Otto Preminger. Bass had an uncanny ability to capture the mood of a film with simple shapes and images, much like his other work. He would go on to work with directors such as Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, and Martin Scorcese and design classic posters for movies such as The Man with the Golden Arm, West Side Story, The Shining, Exodus, and North by Northwest. Bass would move on to creating impressive title sequences for many films, such as Psycho and Vertigo. These opening credits felt like animated graphic design, maintaining Bass’s print style for consistent branding of a film. This work would continue late into Bass’s career, designing title sequences for Big, Goodfellas, Schindler’s List, and Casino. To top off his involvement in the film world, Bass won an Oscar in 1968 for his short film Why Man Creates.

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  Write a list of 10 of his most famous works:

1. The man with the golden arm 

2. The seven-year itch 

3. Around the world in 80 days 

4. Vertigo 

5. Anatomy of a murder 

6. North by Northwest 

7. Westside story 

8. Seconds 

9. Cape fear 

10. Casino

• Watch 3 of his pieces of work?

Vertigo: An ex-police officer who suffers from an intense fear of heights is hired to prevent an old friend's wife from committing suicide, but all is not as it seems. Hitchcock's haunting, the compelling masterpiece is uniquely revelatory about the director's own predilections and hang-ups and is widely considered to be one of his masterworks.

Casino: This Martin Scorsese film depicts the Janus-like quality of Las Vegas--it has a glittering, glamorous face, as well as a brutal, cruel one. Ace Rothstein and Nicky Santoro, mobsters who move to Las Vegas to make their mark, live and work in this paradoxical world. Seen through their eyes, each as a foil to the other, the details of mob involvement in the casinos of the 1970s and '80's are revealed. Ace is the smooth operator of the Tangiers casino, while Nicky is his boyhood friend and tough strongman, robbing and shaking down the locals. However, they each have a tragic flaw--Ace falls in love with a hustler, Ginger, and Nicky falls into an ever-deepening spiral of drugs and violence.

Seconds: An unhappy middle-aged banker agrees to a procedure that will fake his death and give him a completely new look and identity - one that comes with its own price. Middle-aged banker Arthur Hamilton is given the opportunity to start a completely new life when he receives calls from his old friend Charlie.

• Choose one of his pieces of work and use the Film Openings checklist to explain whether it is successful?

It points out various key aspects such as the cast crew, producers, time period, and the title with specific typography, hunting the dramatic genre due to the curves used. Directly hooks the audience by the explosion and the very bright, warm, and saturated colors representing the casino like colors and enhances this high-class setting for the audience. Besides, we are left as an audience in a cliff hanger and in a tense position which is very effective to create a sense of uncertainty for the audience so they keep on watching it. It positions the audience in disequilibrium and uses an enigma code to hook the audience. Besides, this burning car establishes a very mafia-like genre and foreshadows the death and even challenges connoting risk, threat, and danger, directly inserting the audience into the action. Finally, it prepares us clearly for this character and hints that he might play the protagonist role due to the non-diegetic and omniscient voice we can hear as he approaches the car and could connote importance. Besides, the use of the car explosion could connote menace and therefore introduce us to a certain drama and disruption this character is in with maybe other characters. It challenges the reader to make various assumptions and make the audience expect certain tense relationships between characters and sets a very disruptive and crime-like mood for them. Finally, this opening clearly sets the tone by using a very conventional Las Vegas setting which is as extravagant and colorful as it used to be during 1995 and the excessive costume also enhances the over-the-top appearance and challenges there was in society. The themes and topics such as money, games, passions, violence, power, and excess are also highlighted through the mise en scene and the way this character approaches the car, presenting a very confident image, symbolizing the seeking power people had and sets a very tense and disruptive tone from the very start. 

The use of the title sequences don’t just compliment the pictures, they give them another layer, embodying the themes and the emotions in a way that leads viewers into the mystery of the film without giving it all away. Besides, every sequence was different in style and approach and creates through special effects a recreation of different settings and places maybe in las vegas such as the casino, Main Street Station, Atomic Liquors, and many more, enhancing and symbolizing a very vivid image through the use of the bright colors, the quick movement, and the various locations, suggesting movement and chaos, setting the very challenging atmosphere there was at Las Vegas. 

In terms of the sound, the use of the appropriately dramatic piece of classical sacred music of J.S. Bach’s St Matthew Passion is really powerful as the accompanying oratorio alights what’s on a visual display, musically. Soon enough, the flung figure lifted with the passion of the fiery orchestral and choral notes creates this heaven-like atmosphere for the audience.