Research Posting - Saul Bass Titles

The 3 Saul Bass film sequences I watched were : North by Northwest, Vertigo and Psycho.
The title sequence for North by Northwest is continuously moving. Images of people walking at fast paces gives the sense that everyone is in a rush to get to their destinations, with this rush being empathsised in particular places, such as near the end of the sequence where the audience sees a bus driving off leaving one man behind despite him appearing to get to the bus stop with enough time to get on the bus before it drives off. There seems to be no social contact between the people as they all go to their separate destinations, which again gives the feeling of everyone being rushed. Everyone is in a rush to get to where they need to be, and they do this without caring about other people, they're preoccupied in where they're going and where they've got to be. The titles that appear throughout the sequence also put across this idea of being rushed. The titles come onto the screen from all different directions at quite fast speeds, but within a matter of seconds of them appearing, they again disappear off the screen at the same fast pace that they came on with.

Throughout the title sequence of Vertigo, the theme is based around the shape of the human eye. The sequence starts with shots of the eye, where we see them move from side to side, looking anxious and worried about what might be going on around them. This gives the audience the sense that something dramatic and shocking is going to happen, making them feel tense and anxious about what could happen in the film. A clip of the eye widening, which then proceeds to turn the colour red, again puts across the feeling of tension and anxiety in the audience. The eye widening gives the audience a clear sign that something shocking is going to happen at some point in the film. The different shapes that are used during the rest of the title sequence are all based around the shape of the human eye. The shapes and patterns are all shaped around a black circle in the middle of the image. This black circle possibly represents the eye's pupil, with the patterns that lead from it representing the iris of the human eye. The shapes that Saul Bass has used in this title sequence are all bizarre and peculiar shapes. The use of these strange shapes could be to get across the idea of madness and something not being quite right.

The Psycho title sequence builds the tension of what could happen in the film from the moment the titles begin. The black background used throughout the sequence gives the sense of mystery and darkness, which gives the audience the idea that something dark and mysterious could happen in the film. The titles appear on the screen in a 'shaking' motion, all coming onto the screen in segments as if the words have been broken apart like broken glass, before all the segments join up again to make the full title. This gives a distorted vision, the audience can't work out what the word is going to say when it first appears on the screen, it is only after a few seconds or more that they can finally read what it says. This again puts across the sense of mystery to the audience, as they are for the few seconds of the words being unreadable being kept in the dark about whats going to appear. This could be representing what is going to happen in the film, and that both the characters who are in the film itself as well as the audience are going to be kept in the dark about what happens in the film.