Saul Bass was a graphic designer and an Oscar winning filmmaker from America. His job was a best known for his motion picture title sequences and film posters. He worked with many famous film directors and produces such as Hitchcock, alley Kubrick and Billy Wilder. His first very good piece of graphic design work was the 1954 film of Carmen Jones. The makers of this film liked his work so much that they asked him to return and design their title credits as well. He became famous for turning old techniques of making traditional title sequences into exciting moving titles. He is also credited as pictorial consultant for his input on the horror film 'psyco'. He also was the person that designed the opening title sequence for the film. He was famous for creating sequences with distinctive shapes which were unique to the films. He wanted to show a message in all of his work. For instance in Casino Royal he incorporated a coin to show that money was going to be talked a lot in the film. As you can see in the Requiem of Dream it shows an eye and a skull. The themes of the film are going to incorporate death or solving a case of some kind.
Elaine Bass
Elaine Bass was also a opening title sequence designer who worked with her husband Saul. She is known for her design of the titles in Goodfellers, the title designer in Casino and being the title design consultant in Physco (as well as her husband). She also directed a few short films such as a film named Quest. Even though both her husband and her worked along side each other to produce the work that they were famous for, her husband was credited for many more projects than her. Both Elaine and Saul worked on the title sequence of West Side Story and Grand Prix. I really liked the way that they both contributed to the opening title sequence of West Side Story. It was very effective how that added the themes of the film into the title. The prominante red colour of the cover was used as it was the colour of the jets in the film. Once Elaine had her children she stopped working for a few years and Saul took over making the titles. She was 're-discovered' by James L Brooks in the 80s as she was asked to create the titles for The War of The Roses and The Age of Innocent.
Awards and jobs
Elaine is praised for her diverse style to work with a verity of styles. Saul Bass won awards for his design of legos, title sequences and commercials. He won an Oscar for the academy award winning "Why man creates" in 1968. He won another academy award for best documentary in 1969 and a "Lion Of San Marco" for best film in 1965. Around 1969 he started creating logos for companies such as A T&T, Continental airlines and United airlines in 1974.
Saul Bass opening title sequences:
Here is a video that I watch when researching Saul and Elaine Bass's opening title sequences. It includes some of their most famous ones such as Casino, Goodfellas, Psycho and Vertigo.
The first title sequence appeared in 1897 by Thomas Edison. Edison decided that to stop anyone copying his work he would use credits at the start of his film. From then on titles were introduced in many films as a way of copyright and then became a way or branding and promoting the actors in the film. Another famous opening title sequence that influenced others was the 1932 film of 'A Farewell to Arms'. His film 'A Farewell To Arms" is about a love affair between a Lieutenant and a nurse in World War 1. The film focuses on masculinity and femininity whilst also showing the passion and love between a couple. At this time actors and actresses were just becoming a very famous career choice where globally their names would be known. So, using titles would also bring attention to their films if somebody famous's name was in the title. Also around this time jobs such as director's and producers were also getting quite high paid jobs so this also meant that they could get the proper recognition of their work.
Examples of Titles in recent films and tv programs
No time to die
I really like the No Time to Die opening title as the titles represent what is going to happen in the sequence. As the genre of the film is action and advective I thought the font that they used was good as it isn't too big and bold. I also really liked how the titles went on and off the screen in time with the music. As our opening title sequence features a song with a repetitive beat I think that it would be cool is ours also come on and off in time with the music. I also would like to use a font like theirs but smaller as it doesn't block the action in the sequence. All of the James Bond opening title sequences link to what the film is going to be about. It has been used since the first one to have the song name of the title of the film as this is a good way of marketing. The no time to die song by Billie Eilish was released months before the film came out which meant that the profits were higher before the film even was released.
Catch me if you can
The way that the titles mould into the drawings is very effective. I really like how the sequence only contains blue and black colours as it makes it more rememberable. I don't think I would use the font that they used in our opening title sequence as its very big and obvious for the audience. I however liked the speed that the titles come up which I would consider using for our sequence. The pictures in the opening title sequence also represented what was going to happen in the rest of the film. Catch me if you can it's about a boy who wants to be a con artist and changes his identity and jobs to earn money and to escape the police. For instance, he becomes a pilot, then a doctor and also an FBI inspector.
Euphoria
I think that the Euphoria titles are the closest to the ones that I would choose for our sequence. I think that the thin font and small size if perfect as it isn't too visible. I liked how in this title sequence the attention was on the names of the cast and the crew as it made the audience focus on it. This also worked with the background as it stayed the same meaning and was simplistic so that the audience wasn't drawn to it. For our sequence we want the opposite. We want the audience to mainly focus on the action rather than the titles. I think that we will probably achieve this through using thin white text and position it on the sides of the frame.
Production company logo's
All of the 'Big 5' conglomerate companies have changed their logos since they first were invented. This is mainly because the companies have been bought by other companies meaning that their logos get combined or updated. When Disney bought Pixar their logo was updated to be Disney-Pixar however it still included the original lamp shade. Warner Brothers changed quite a lot when A T&T bought it however it now seems to be staying the same.
In the first editing lesson we put all of our shots onto the time line and was starting to edit them to be shorter so we wouldn't go over the 2 minute mark. To accomplish this, Tom showed us how we could click on a single frame and edit it to the exact time rather than having an extra few seconds on each shot. This also meant that our sequence looked cleaner and smoother as the transitions between each shot flowed more. To make our sound flow and to make sure that there isn't pauses between them, we used a fader at the end of the sound in one shot and fade in the sound in the next one. This creates a seamless transition and improves the sound quality. We did the same thing with the sound as we did with the shots by going into them closer and made sure that we didn't have any unnessasary second on each one.
Doug was in charge of editing the non-diegetic soundtrack for our sequence. He editing on the software app Logic Pro X as he does music tec. We decided that the Kate Bush version of the song Babushka would bet most appropriate for our sequence as it has a build up and the topic of the song is about a wife thinking that her husband is cheating on her which relates to our sequence. He struggled at the start of editing as we had to move the second verse of the song in front of the first chorus due to the length of our sequence. This was pretty difficult as we had to make sure the transition wasn't noticeable. In the end he had to find a part in both the verses that matched and edited it on the partition. Once it was all good on Logic Pro X, we converted it to Premiere Pro and attached it to our sequence. I then went through and made sure that the soundtrack match the action. One of the difficulties was matching the moment when the door is slammed to when the chorus started. We wanted to do this as the whole song is building up to the end scene so we needed the contrast to be dramatic.
Third time in the editing suite
On the next day of editing we had a bit of a problem as on the day I was absent from editing, someone in our group managed to delete all of the original shot sounds which meant that we had no sound of Nikki screaming and the car door opening and closing. Luckily Tom and I went through the saved history to try and find a day where the sound had been saved. Luckily we found the original sound footage. The downside was that it was the unedited version and was still over 3 minutes. I stayed in the suite for the next hour lining the sound up to the action and cutting the unnecessary parts. Thankfully, it was saveable and I managed to put it back to normal. Even at the end of the sequence we were 20 seconds over 2 minutes so preferably we needed to get it to exactly 2 minutes. I managed to get the song to 2 minutes. The way that we cut down time was shortening the length of the titles to the length of each shot and shortening the time that the 'My Love' title was up on the screen. Once we had it down to just under 2 minute we showed our sequence to Tom and Adam just check that everything had been done correctly and that we hadn't left any titles out. Once we got the go ahead we could hand in our work.
In our media lesson we first looked at the shots that we filmed on the shoot day. I really liked how the shots turned out. I especially liked the shots of the couple together as I like the saturation of the shots. I also thought that the shots that we got in the studio filmed in the red LEDs look extremely good. I noticed that we had lots of walking shots of Nikki which I new that we would have to cut down or we would go over the time limit. We began logging and assembling all of our shots in the order that we wanted them to be in which was pretty easy considering we had filmed in a kind of chronological order. We were also very happy as on shoot day we decided to spend time at the start to take extra scenery shots so we new that if we ever needed to fill time in our sequence we had shots to use. We then realised that our shots combined took our total duration of the sequence to 3 minutes 20 seconds, which was much longer than needed! Tom told us that we had many options to shorten down our sequence so we didn't need to worry. We also new that we didn't want to have minutes of Nikki walking round town as well.
Starting editing:
We then began editing our shots so that there wasn't any unnessasary seconds of nobody in shot. This mainly happened in our walking shots as we started rolling a few seconds before the actor walked into frame. This took us a while as we also wanted to make sure that everything looked smooth and that the shots don't looked rushed. I thought it would be a good idea to go through all our shots and find places that we can transition two shots together.
For instance:
In this shot we edited a mid shot of freya to transition to a close up of her face. To achieve this we found a point in both of the shots that match up to make a seamless transition:
Mid shot.Close up
We wanted to show that the wife is under the illusion that her husband is cheating on her. To show this we edited her transition turning around and the family on the table disappears. To accomplish this we got Nikki to do the same this twice, one with the family at the table and the next with a free table:
I arrived at school at 8:20am for a 9o'clock start in the studio. I brought in all the props that we needed and I also printed out the shot by shot and the schedule for the day on a piece of paper. At 9am we met in the studio and helped Tom get all of the camera equipment that we needed and we headed to the bus. When we were on the bus we discussed where we wanted to film first as the weather was raining. We new that we were going to have to adapt our shot by shot as we didn't want the actors to have to sit in the rain for a huge amount of time. Tom then looked through our shot by shot to understand where we wanted to film throughout our day. When we arrived in Shere we had half an hour before Nikki was arriving so I suggested that we should look around the village and film some extra shots to add into our sequence. I thought that it would be effective to film by the stream as you could see the ducks playing and the rain splashing onto the water. We each took turns to film a few shots and took turns to hold the microphone and the umbrella over the camera. I also got to film some extra shots of birds to add the mood into our sequence. I thought that this was effective as I got to have a practice filming again before we had to film with the actors, I think this benefited the quality of the rest of our filming through out the day.
At 10:30 Nikki arrived into the village. As a group we had a talk about adapting the beginning of our sequence. We wanted to change the start to have Nikki driving into her parking spot, look at her phone and then slam her hands onto the steering wheel to show that she is mad at her husband. I then looked round the centre of the village to film a spacious parking spot for Nikki to drive into. We managed to find one that was near all three of our locations; the pub, the cafe and the centre of the village. Mia and I the spoke to Nikki about what she had to do in the take. Doug and I then helped Tom move the camera into the position that we wanted to be able to see her drive into her spot. To make sure that we got all of the correct shots we filmed this 4 times. We filmed the first one straight on in a wide shot, the in the same place but a mid shot filmed through the windscreen, then we did a straight on close up shot through the windscreen and the last one we filmed a midst from the side angle so we could see Nikki look at her phone close up. Mia and I thought it would be cool to film inside the car looking at Nikki from behind. When we filmed this I used the camera when we filmed outside the car and when we filmed inside the car I held the microphone.
At 11:00 Freya turned up and we spoke to her about the scenes that she will be filming in. Freya is playing Kate so she dressed as a mid 20 year old lady. We then moved the camera over to the pub as we were going to film there next. As the pub is a buisness and we needed permission to film there, Adam and I went inside to check that we were still allowed to film inside. I showed the man at the bar the email that we got from the manager saying we could film and he was very lovely and agreed that we could film anywhere. Doug and I then spent a few minutes looking round there restaurant of the pub working out which table would be the best to use if we were filming from outside looking in. One of the tables worked perfectly as it could be seen through a massive window on the door and was a table for two people. As in this scene we wanted to show that Nikki had gone crazy and was imagining her husband cheating on her, we filmed a few shots of the table through the window when no one was at the table. One of the problems that we had to sort out was the reflection in the window which effected the view off the table. I though that if Tom stood infront of the window and next to camera it would block out the light which is it. The next thing we thought would be effective to film is Nikki walking up too the door of the pub and looking through the window. We filmed this from two different angles. One was looking side on at Nikki and the other one was behind her looking past her shoulder into the pub. We then got Freya and Adam to sit in the pub with their drinks and practice laughing and looking natural like they are on a date. We first filmed through the window filming them cheers and laugh. We made sure we filmed more than once incase the reflection was effecting the shot. I really liked how this scene turned out as as the date looked very realistic. The next thing I filmed was behind Nikki shoulder again but you could see the couple in the pub. This was because when we edit the shots we can make it look like the couple has disappeared and it was all in her brain. Mia and I then got to film Nikki storming out of the pub towards the cafe. We filmed this in a wide shot, mid shot and a close up to make sure that we have lots of options to use when we are filming.
At 12 o'clock my mum and brother arrived as were using teddy as Adam and Nikki's child. As i knew the lady that worked in the cafe I went inside to make sure we were still allowed to film. We chose this cafe as it had an amazing big window which was very effective to film through. Like the pub we got shots of Nikki walking to the window of the cafe looking in and seeing her husband, son and the Kate, We set up the table in the cafe with the three of the cast and made it look naturalistic and like they have been sitting there for a few hours. To show this we had cups of tea on the table, children books for teddy and coats on the back of the chairs. I got to film multiple shots of Nikki standing infront of the window. Some of the shots had the family sitting at the table and some of the shots we cleared the table to make it look as if they weren't there. I really liked this shot as it looked very real. It worked really well that there were other customers in the cafe as well.
After we filmed in the cafe we were finished we had lunch in the same cafe. This was really nice as we all got to sit down and talk about everything we have filmed and needed to film. We also felt like it was only appropriate to eat in the cafe that had allowed us to film in. So far we were very happy with the filming that we had just dome. When we all finished eating we got on the minibus back to school to film in the studio. I was very excited to film in the studio as we were going to need to choose lighting and need to use make up on freya. One of the small difficulties of the day was that Mia and I had different ideas to Tom and Doug of what we were going to film in the studio. We spoke to Tom about our idea and he agreed that it would work well. He also showed us what his idea would look like. In the end both Mia and I agreed on Toms idea as we thought that it would be fun to film. I then took Freya to the bathroom and did her make up to look as if she had been constantly beaten up. I thought that the make up looked pretty realistic actually! In the studio we chose what lighting we needed. As we agreed that the studio could easily look like a wearhouse we decided to use red LED lighting which would make the scene look more scary and the tension can be built. Freya wore one of my t-shirts as we wanted to cover her in blood and bruises. We told Freya and Nikki what the goals were in this scene and they thought that this would look very cool on camera. We tied freya up to the bars on the stairs and filmed Nikki walking down with a bat and hitting her over the head. We got Nikki to cover her body over the camera so it would look like she is hitting freya over the head but she wouldn't have to actually do it. We filmed looking straight on at freya a 4 times as we wanted to get a variety of close ups. We ended up getting a mid shot, close up, very close up and an extreme close up. I thought that this would be a good idea as we could show freya's scared emotions. For one of the shot I held the microphone close to the stairs so you could hear the bat hitting the stair's, this would create atmosphere over the non-diegetic soundtrack that we are going to use. We also filmed from freya's POV looking up at Nikki. This shot looked really cool as Nikki looked like a silhouette because the red LED was behind her. I was filming this part so I asked Nikki to hit the bat over the camera to create a black screen. Now we have the black screen we can edit the title over the top of it.
One of the locations that we wanted to use was the William Bray pub. I emailed the pub making sure that they new when we were going to film, what genre we were filming and what we needed to film in the pub. They were really lovely and allowed us a large amount of time to film in their pub. We new that if the weather was bad we were were going to have to film inside the pub and they were also very happy to let us film inside. We really liked this pub as the bar and seating area is right infant of the window meaning that if the weather is bad we have the option to film through the windows looking in at the action inside. If the action is good they have a beautiful seating area that we could use.
Before creating a film and an opening title sequence you need to consider the target audience. This is important because it is more effective to market to a particular age group so the film with appeal to many people. If you market to anyone then you have the struggle that not as many people will watch it as it won't appeal to them. You can distinguish the target audience through genre, actors in the film and era.
Outer banks
Outerbanks is an "action-adventure mystery teen drama" that is about teenagers solving a mystery. The whole concept about Outer Banks is a group of teenagers trying to solve the mystery of why the gold on an old ship went missing. To appeal to our age group Outerbanks contains mystery, romance between some of the cast and attractive people. Also the actors in real life are constantly on social media publicising and promoting the film and also are posting pictures of them filming. I think that it is key for a cast to have some 'attractive' people in it because lots of fans like to fantasise over the characters. Outer banks is also full of of suspense which keeps the younger generation engaged due to social media most teenagers attention spans are not great. The whole concept of Outer Banks appeals to my generation as it's about a group of teenagers not going to school, living by the beach and solving mysteries. The marketing team are also very clever that they release the series when it's summer.
Line of duty
Line of Duty is also an "action-adventure mystery drama" however it is targeted to adults 30+. The concept of line of duty is about two rival police departments that normally get put to work on the same jobs and solve the same crime. Lots of episodes in line of duty include themes of injustice in the police department. To appeal to this age group it contains many different mysteries so it doesn't get boring, these normally include a large action scene when normally one of the protagonists get involved or get injured. It also includes a few relationships in it to keep it exciting as that normally causes controversy in the police department as well. It also is quite factual as the language that they use would be the correct language that would be used in the police department. This also appeals to many adults as they enjoy watching programs that they can benefit off.
The difference:
The difference between a mystery drama for teenagers and adults is that for teenagers there needs to be more action happening constantly and there also needs to be relationships and characters to relate too. For adults there can be less constant action as adults tend to have a better attention span. Due to social media teenagers my age have a worse attention span and if something is boring they normally change what they're watching. I think that for adults there needs to be more educational topics like the correct terminology and costumes. For the younger generation there needs to be more suspense, romance and relatable characters so that the audience feels emotionally involved with what they're watching.
Our target audience
As our opening title sequence is about a wife that thinks her husband is cheating on her, so, i expect that the ideal target audience would be for people aged 40-70 as its a crime drama. I expect that our whole film will contain a big amount of jump scares and death as that is what features in the opening title sequence. As I also respect the teenagers could watch a film, I would want there to be lots of excitement so they don't get bored of watching it. From the title sequence you understand that the wife is a murderer killing the husbands lover. If I was watching this sequence I would imagine that the rest of the film would feature many more deaths and a police investigation trying to work out or capture who has done the killings.
