“One final thing I have to do… and then I’ll be free of the past. “ —John ‘Scottie’ Ferguson

There is a threshold in art and design where a work can become so iconic as to transcend its own scope and become a symbol for its medium. Consider Warhol’s soup cans or Mondrian’s color fields, or – to bring it closer to home – Saul Bass’ iconic AT&T or United Airlines logos. And just as it would be difficult to find an American unfamiliar with these works, so too would it be difficult to find a moviegoer unfamiliar with the title sequence to Vertigo. Credit Bernard Herrmann’s haunting score or Bass’ odd synthesis of sensual Kim Novak closeups and spirographic imagery, but it’s likely an alchemy of the three that makes the Vertigo titles an enduring classic.

The spirographic images (called Lissajous waves, technically) were contributed by artist John Whitney, a pioneer of computer arts and a long-time animator at UPA, a commercial animation studio well-known for their modern aesthetic and experimental techniques. (In fact, Bass would again use a UPA alum, Bill Melendez – best known as the Peanuts sole animator – three years later in his sequence for It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.)

While seemingly unrelated to the story and perhaps even too modern for their own good, Whitney’s contributions to Vertigo were validated by Bass’ graphic direction and Hermann’s score, folding his designs into their tried-and-true audio-visual template. The resulting sequence is a landmark work both for Bass and the title industry, framing the film’s premise through evocative-yet-unlikely imagery and Hitchcock’s unique branding eye.

WRITER: Ben Radatz

"I think I must have one of those faces you can't help believing." - Norman Bates

It's safe to say that after half a century of critical writing about Psycho, there are few stones left unturned. The same can also be said of Bass' now infamous opening title sequence. Designed on a $21k budget, it is likely his most significant and familiar accomplishment in the eyes of cinephiles and laymen alike.

Admittedly, Bass does not give his audience much to work with. Like the minimalists who came before him and his modernist contemporaries, Bass' favorite route from idea to execution was usually the shortest — and there are few routes shorter than the one taken in Psycho. He uses a series of simple white bars to usher in the sans-serif titles and escort them back out again. Although these lines come from different areas of the screen, they never once break formation or intersect. Likewise, the animation of these lines and the type itself are just as reserved — every object has a path from which it does not deviate. On, off, left, right, up, down, black, white — those are Bass's self-imposed restrictions on Psycho, and he employs them with dramatic effect.

There are two major currents running through Psycho: contrast and tension. Antagonist Norman Bates' dual personality provides the contrast, and the caper (or the Macguffin, as Hitchcock would have called it) brings the tension. In many ways, the film succeeds because it doesn't stray far from these core elements. There is very little comedic relief, for example. Romance and interpersonal relationships are little more than props. As far as plot husbandry goes, Psycho is about as streamlined and fuel-efficient as they come.

Therein also lies the brilliance of Bass' title sequence. In the space of a few short minutes, with his minimal toolkit and Bernard Herrmann's jagged score, Bass creates a parallel visual tension to the film that tells the audience everything they need to know about the plot, without saying much of anything at all. He artfully sets the tone by asking the viewer to read between the lines -- quite literally -- but he also asks that we read into them.

I can think of no better way to enter a Hitchcock film.

WRITER: Ben Radatz
© Art of the Title, 2011

"There'll come a time when all of us must leave here..." - George Harrison, The Art of Dying

Like sighs from a scythe in a wheat field of psychosis, the opening title sequence for Gaspar Noé’s Enter the Void is a melting onslaught of typographic design foisted upon the senses. This unrelenting visual overdose hacks pleasurably at the viewer, as the tip of a nail does finding its destiny. Names become bright little deaths fired to a machine gun beat; the images encircle your pupils as LFO’s "Freak" drives the nail deeper.

To celebrate the release of the long-awaited book Saul Bass: A Life In Film & Design, I put together a brief visual history of some of Saul Bass's most celebrated work.

Saul Bass: A Life In Film & Design, by Jennifer Bass and Pat Kirkham, is available on Amazon.

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) will also celebrate the life of Saul Bass with a film screening and talk on Monday, November 14, 2011, at 7:00 p.m. This special event features the New York premiere of Saul and Elaine Bass's Academy Award-winning short Why Man Creates (1968), newly preserved by the Academy Film Archive, as well as a rich selection of title sequences, commercials, and corporate campaigns.

Among the evening's guest presenters are the book's author, Pat Kirkham, a distinguished design historian who knew Bass personally; Chip Kidd, the award-winning contemporary graphic designer and writer noted for his brilliant book covers; and Kyle Cooper, a legendary graphic designer in his own right, with such unforgettable film title sequences as Se7en, X-Men: First Class, the Spider-Man trilogy, and countless others.

Full details here: The Academy and MoMA Present Saul Bass: A Life in Film & Design

- Ian Albinson, Editor-in-Chief

"I sent my soul through the invisible, some letter of that afterlife to spell: and by and by my soul returned to me and answered, ‘I myself am Heaven and Hell.’" - Omar Khayyám (from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyám)

A spectral camera soars languidly through a deep valley, conjuring up images of the American frontier: towering mountains, evergreen trees, and serene water lucidly captured through a wide-angle lens. Sweeping across the landscape, the camera begins to follow a tiny yellow VW Beetle making its way up a winding road carved into the steep mountain cliffs. The lens frequently relegates the car to only a fraction of the frame, revealing how minuscule the vehicle is against the grandeur on which it is trespassing. This bird’s eye chase foreshadows the events that await the Torrence family and the film’s harrowing themes of isolation and madness.

After being offered The Exorcist and its sequel, Exorcist 2: The Heretic, the iconoclast filmmaker, Stanley Kubrick, declined both and opted instead to adapt a story from Stephen King’s novel, The Shining. The title sequence introduces viewers to Kubrick’s unorthodox vision of horror, as haunting landscapes and unnerving score combine to cause an ineffable unease. By discarding genre tropes such as creaking doors, spiderwebs, dark corridors, and excessive blood, the title sequence outperforms convention.

The stunning mountain ranges were filmed by Greg McGillivray (from MacGillivray Freeman Films), a cameraman personally chosen by Kubrick.

From the book Kubrick by Michel Ciment:

The aerial shots share many characteristics with the hotel footage filmed using the Steadicam, a stabilizing camera mount pioneered by Garrett Brown. Kubrick’s innovative use of the Steadicam on The Shining was considered groundbreaking, and the seemingly effortless gliding motions and long takes afforded by the system closely echo the title sequence. This hitherto untested stylistic choice imbues every move of the camera with a sense of tension and dread. Unaware of what lies around the next curve in the road or hallway corridor, viewers are lured deeper and deeper into the world of the film.

Unusually, the title sequence for The Shining also employs rolling credits, a design element normally reserved for end credits. When paired with the unsettling musical score, the austere Helvetica typeface — cryptically colored a hot blue — seems immediately at odds with the pristine wilderness.

Dies Irae (Latin for Day of Wrath) is the name of the 13th century Gregorian chant re-envisioned by composers Wendy Carlos and Rachel Elkind for the title sequence. Their modern take establishes the haunting atmosphere using the sounds of an electronic synthesizer — a common trope in many subsequent horror films. The synth fades in and out periodically, allowing a Native American ritual hymn to enter. The shrill wail of sirens pierce the vast sky and add to the uncanny mood.

Like many of cinema’s most notable title sequences, the introduction to The Shining touches on themes later addressed in the film. For a celebrated and chronicled filmmaker such as Kubrick — known for his trenchant observations and perfectionism — myriad readings can be taken from viewing this opening. Jack Torrence’s ascent into the celestial Rocky Mountains is also a descent into the depths of his own personal hell; the lonely and strangely claustrophobic mountain road is the first of many labyrinthine constructs the film forces the Torrence family into. Here Kubrick introduces the viewer to an uncharacteristic form of horror: the domestic kind. When stripped of its supernatural elements, The Shining is an all too familiar tale of abuse, alienation, and paranoia.

WRITER: Shaun Mir
© Art of the Title, 2011

A solitary shell placed carefully by dark hands sets the stage for a bunraku play of prehistoric ages past: papier-mâché cephalopods give way to darting sea creatures and lizard beasts locked in combat. Humanity is introduced as the style changes to the two dimensional and animated cave paintings begin to slaughter one another with newly discovered weapons. Time progresses further and mankind’s weapons grow increasingly efficient, requiring less and less effort to kill and maim.

Utilizing varied styles of stagecraft to denote each passing era and narrated by a deep and commanding voice, Guilherme Marcondes’ title sequence for Guy Moshe's Bunraku brings us forward to the time of our story. A tyrant strides forth with his axe and an army stands in formation.

"This is a job for the Australian!" - Louison

Crass laughter drowns out the man’s final whimper as a meat cleaver comes crashing down, delivering his end as well as the opening titles for Delicatessen. The butcher shop's emblem, a hanging pig, sways back and forth, in and out of the shadows. It is a dismal reminder of the realities of this post-apocalyptic world: meat of pig, cow and chicken is a rarity, and the only substitute is that of human flesh.

The descending notes of a piano usher the camera towards a notepad, passing a severed hand along its way, and the first set of film credits. With a macabre charm the title sequence glides through various twists and turns, the camera deftly capturing remnants of survivors past, while the jovial intro music underscores the film's black comedy.

Delicatessen's distinct visual aesthetic can be attributed partly to an intricate chemical process called ENR. Named after its inventor, Ernesto Novelli Rimo, a technician at Technicolor Rome, the process was created for legendary cinematographer Vittorio Storaro (Apocalypse Now, Reds, The Last Emperor). The bleach-bypass process imbues the film stock with a sanguine overcast, giving it a cannibal quality that matches the subject matter.

We asked friend of the site Karin Fong, a creative director and designer at Imaginary Forces, whose title work includes Terminator: Salvation, Boardwalk Empire and Rubicon, for her thoughts on the Delicatessen titles:

“One of my all-time favorite main titles. I love how it creates a whole world in tabletop. The production design in macro is fantastic, all the details and texture, along with the music, are so charming. But more than that, how it weaves in each of the crew credits with cleverness – the DP’s credit etched on the camera, the music credit on a broken record. I’ve always appreciated how integrated the titles are with the environment, as if they are waiting for you to discover each one. It almost becomes a game, and once you realize what is going on, you delight in seeing the idea in each one—yes, of course the costume designer would be stitched on a clothing label! It’s like every credit is its own little a-ha moment.

I can’t remember when I first saw it—somehow independently from the film—but it always stuck with me. When I first started designing titles I very much wanted to do something in that vein. I remember one of my first pitch boards, for the film Dead Man on Campus, involved hiding all the credits on student “cheat sheets”: written on the sole of a shoe, on a pencil, tucked away in the top part of boxer shorts peeking out from jeans. That exact idea didn’t fly but it hasn’t stopped me from thinking about the next time I could use such an approach.

Of course, most people don’t realize that when it comes to making these sequences, it can be harder to get the studio’s legal department to approve how you are treating the names, since every one of them has some variation in appearance. Most major films have clauses in the cast and crew contracts about how the names must appear in the credit sequence. It’s tricky when you’re using different fonts and camera angles, but, knowing that, I suppose it makes me appreciate those title designs that do ingeniously weave in the credits even more.”

WRITER: Shaun Mir
LAST UPDATE: October 8, 2011
© Art of the Title, 2011