CASE STUDY:Saul Bass

07/11/11

G321: Individual Media Studies Portfolio

SAUL BASS

“making a main-title was like making a poster - you’re condensing the event into one concept, this one metaphor…a backstory that needs to be told or a character that needs to be introduced.”

1920 - 1996

SAUL BASS

1920 - Born in the Bronx district of New York.

Bass studied at the Art Students League in New York and Brooklyn College under Gyorgy Kepes, a Hungarian graphic designer.

After apprenticeships with Manhattan design firms, Bass worked as a freelance graphic designer or "commercial artist" as they were called.

1946 - He moved to Los Angeles to get away from creative constraints imposed on him in New York.

1950 - After freelancing, he opened his own studio working mostly in advertising.

1954 - Otto Preminger invited him to design the poster for his movie, Carmen Jones. Impressed by the result, Preminger asked Bass to create the film’s title sequence too.

Golden Arm

Bass first made his mark on film when he designed a simple paper cut-out of a heroin addict’s arm for the opening titles of The Man with The Golden Arm.

1955

Bass chose the arm as a

powerful image of addiction

rather than Frank Sinatra’s

famous face - as the symbol

of both the movie’s titles

and its promotional poster.

He is best known for his use of simple, geometric shapes and their symbolism. Often, a single dominant image stands alone to deliver a powerful message.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGnpJ_KdqZE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnG3OjIcN8M&feature=related

Bass’s posters and titles had an uncanny ability to capture the mood of a film with simple shapes and images. This was his preferred method as opposed to using a boring photograph of a film star.

Bass was heavily influenced by Bauhaus and Russian Constructivism

The constructivists tried to create works that would make the viewer an active viewer of the

artwork.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jFpQMpsMiE

• Between 1970 and 1986 Bass designed for only a

handful of films: Such Good Friends, Rosebud, That's

Entertainment Part II, and The Human Factor.

• In an interview with Sight and Sound in 1995 he

explained,

'Eventually titles got out of hand. It got to a point where it

seemed that somebody got up there before the film

and did a tap dance. Fancy titles became fashionable

rather than useful and that's when I got out'.

Bass was persuaded to return to the film title design in the 1980’s, when he began a rich collaboration with Martin Scorsese on films including Cape Fear, Casino and the Age of Innocence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoO0ZsQ7tBg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bpP9sI72bM