Saul Bass Research

Saul Bass was born in May 8th 1920, in New York City. Bass was an American graphic designer and Academy Award-winning filmmaker, but he is best known for his design on animated motion picture title sequences. During his 40-year career he worked for some of Hollywood's greatest film starters, including most notably Alfred Hitchcock. Bass studied at the Art Students League in Manhattan until attending classes with Gyorgy Kepes at Brooklyn College. Whilst he was at Brooklyn Collage, he was spotted by a man called Otto Preminger for his graphic design work and was asked by him to create a title sequence as well for films because he was so impressed with his work. This was Saul Bass' first opportunity and the start of his career. One of the title sequences we looked at by Saul Bass was Alfred Hitchcock's film Psycho. Psycho is a 1960 American psychological thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The film Psycho is best known for its shower scene with the music score of the screeching violins playing in the background and for its amount of fast cuts that give off a frightening feel. The opening title sequence for Psycho is the lines sweeping across the screen. I think this is a very affective opening sequence because it gives a sense of confusion and suspense and we do not know what is going to happen. Here is the poster by Saul Bass for Psycho: (Top 1960) (Bottom 2008) Pictures from Google.com