Saul and Elaine Bass Research

 Elaine Bass is an American title designer and filmmaker and has contributed to titles sequences for films such as Spartacus (1960), West Side Story (1961) Goodfellas (1990) and many others. 

In 1955 Elaine got the job of assistant to graphic and title designer Saul Bass and directed the opening tile sequence of Spartacus in 1960. 

Saul Bass has worked with filmmakers such as Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, and Martin Scorsese. He even created a new type of kinetic typography for the opening title sequence of ‘Vertigo’ (1958). 

She soon married Saul bass and they collaborated on title sequences for ‘west side story’ (1961) ‘walk on the wild side’ (1962) and others. 

However, they took a break for a while to focus on bringing up their children and then returned back to the film industry where they worked on sequences such as ‘Cape fear’ (1991), ‘Casino’ (1995) and others. Casino was their last film together before Saul passed away in 1996.

The video below goes into detail about Saul Bass' art style and techniques when making his title sequences e.g less is more.

 

I had a closer look at Saul Bass' opening sequence to ‘Vertigo.’ This title sequence was created by Saul Bass in (1958) There of close-up imagery of a woman’s facial features e.g her mouth and nose. Credits also appear however this face is the main focus. It adds quite a lot of mystery as to who this person is as we can see her facial features but may not be able to completely piece them together as we never see her full face. Because the opening of the title sequence is highly focused on this woman, it is fair to assume that she will be an important character. 

When the title ‘vertigo,’ appears on screen, we are focused on the woman’s eye, this is the facial feature that the camera lingers on for the longest. The imagery of the eye is very interesting and it is clear that sight, and what we see visually will be a key part of the storyline. 

I also believe this opening title sequence hints to the fact that the film will be quite dark and possibly of the thriller genre. After the ‘vertigo,’ appears there is a wash of red and the facial expression drastically changes from neutral to scared. This suggests that she is scared of something which is further emphasised buy the fact that we often associate the colour red with danger and fear.

The next key moment in this opening sequence is the imagery of the swirls used. These first appear in the pupil of the eye and gradually grow in size. This creates a very hypnotic image and the motions are slow but could almost symbolise some kind of dizziness/ uneasy feeling. 

The titles enter by fading in and out or zooming in and out. This also adds to the hypnotic feel as there are no sudden movements to break the motion. The font of the title however does not reflect the theme of the opening sequence. The font is ‘tidy’ and ‘sophisticated.’ It doesn’t look dangerous or mysterious in any way, therefore, maybe there are some quite wealthy characters in this film.