Film Title Sequences

February 12th 2021

I’ve had a feeling for some time that my essay was too descriptive. I was consistently making efforts to make it as critical as possible but I knew it still wasn’t what it is supposed to be. So today I spent some time re-working what I already had to make it, hopefully, more critical. 

Looking back at my essay structure and from doing in depth research the last round, I realised I can’t really talk about how graphic designers work on film sets as that’s something that only happens now. If it happened way before that, I have no idea as no information seems to pop up. On the bright side, I found something else I can most definitely talk about. Saul Bass.

I finally managed to write my topic on designers in film. Saul Bass, godfather of film title sequences, of course was covered. I vaguely remember watching Psycho with my sisters and cousins when I was too young to understand anything going on. 

I compared Psycho to Se7en, another iconic thriller movie with a great title sequence. Based on my own thoughts, I do feel psycho depends on the intense music to help create that thriller and tense mood compared to Se7en's title sequence by Kyle Cooper. I am in no way trying to discredit it or say one is better than the other as if Saul Bass had not done as he did, who’s to say that Se7en and any other title movie sequences now would be what it is. Both did capture the essence of the movie well and Bass truly did change the game for title sequences (based on every article about Bass and/or title sequences). 

Title sequence of Psycho by Saul Bass (1960); Title sequence of Se7en by Kyle Cooper (1995).

Well, thats pretty much all I did today. I found plenty of movies I say I want to watch but probably won’t. I am also starting to realise a pattern, I guess? Graphic designers changed typography which somehow shaped pop culture. This is something I would definitely be highlighting in my conclusion. I’m somewhere at 1.2k words, I think. I’m slightly unsure of where to go from now but Ill figure it out.

A Draft:

Film is another section of pop culture that graphic designers have had a hand in as well. In the 50s and 60s, designers revolutionised title sequences for films (May, 2010). Saul Bass, American graphic designer, changed how audiences viewed title sequences by capturing and incorporating the essence of movies into the title sequences in creative ways (Linderman, 2008). Bass invented the ‘kinetic type’, geometric shapes that oftentimes glided across the screen, which he applied to a number of his works (Bigman, 2012). As an example, Bass’s title sequence for Psycho (1960), one of the most iconic thriller movies of all time, uses kinetic type. Bass encapsulated the tension and suspense of the movie by having parts of the text broken apart with lines that ran across the screen to drag the text in and out. In the same sense of capturing the essence and setting the scene of the movie, another iconic thriller movie, Kyle Cooper’s title sequence for Se7en (1995). Cooper captured the psychotic mood of the movie by using hand drawn type and making them jitter on the screen (Art of The Title, nd.). Cooper used thin lines to create the scratchy effect of thriller while Bass used thick lines to cut the text apart, both expressing the thriller tenor of the movie. One thing noticeably similar from both these title sequences is the plain white text on the black background and the usage of lines. Although both these movies used different typography methods to depict the thriller and psychological essence of the movies, both definitely made a huge impact of pop culture and design.

Bibliography:

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/10/the-art-of-the-film-title-throughout-cinema-history/ (May, 2010)

https://signalvnoise.com/posts/917-title-sequences-from-saul-bass-the-master-of-film-title-design (Linderman, 2008)

https://www.artofthetitle.com/title/se7en/ (Art of The Title, nd.)

https://es.99designs.com/blog/famous-design/saul-bass-graphic-designer-of-a-century/ (Bigman, 2012)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPBWvfMKV10&ab_channel=Fandor

https://www.artofthetitle.com/designer/saul-bass/

https://www.artofthetitle.com/title/psycho-1998/

http://www.designishistory.com/1960/saul-bass/

https://www.creativebloq.com/design/top-movie-title-sequences-10121014