1920 1996 SAUL BASS making a maintitle was

1920 - 1996 SAUL BASS “making a main-title was like making a poster - you’re condensing the event into one concept, this one metaphor…a back story that needs to be told or a character that needs to be introduced. ”

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.

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. 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. 1955

Before Saul Bass transformed film titles, they were simple lists of the cast and crew projected on to cinema curtains, which only opened when the film started.

Around the World in 80 Days 1956 Saul Bass designed the final credits for this film, based on the book by Jules Vern, which won an Academy Award for best picture.

Bass used a single image to identify and symbolize movies in his poster designs. Martin Scorsese once described his approach as creating: "an emblematic image, instantly recognizable and immediately tied to the film". 1957

1957

1958

1959

PSYCHO -1959

Psycho Shower Scene as designed by Saul Bass

1959

In 1961, Bass worked on the prologue, titles, and visual consultation for the Movie West Side Story. A musical based on the story of Romeo and Juliet. Prologue - a speech, preface, introduction, or brief scene preceding the main action or plot of a film.

The opening credits for Bunny Lake is Missing consist of black paper being ripped to reveal the names of cast and crew. Bunny Lake is Missing 1965

In the mid-1960’s, Saul Bass began to make his own movies, winning an Academy Award for a short film he made with his wife Elaine in 1968, Why Man Creates.

In 1974 he directed his first feature film, Phase IV, a sci-fi about a super intelligent race of ants threatening man's supremacy on earth.

When Phase IV flopped, Bass returned to commercial graphic design. His corporate work included devising highly successful corporate identities for United Airlines, AT&T, Minolta, Bell Telephone System and Warner Communications. He also designed the poster for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games.

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.

Casino 1995

1980 The Age of Innocence 1993

1991 1994 1993 In the early 90’s Bass designed Posters for the Academy Awards as well as film festivals and other promotional materials.