Saul Bass – Master of film credit titles

For a long time, I wanted to write a short post about the art of credit titles, and there is no better way to start than with the man, who truly elevated this art form – Saul Bass. Saul Bass managed to get people to pay attention to the credit titles, because he made the credit titles part of the story.

The Bat Whispers (1930)
The Bat Whispers (1930)

When you start watching a movie, there is this moment of anticipation: What is this movie about, who are the main characters, is it comedy/drama? Usually the very first thing you’ll see are the opening credit titles. What you would see in a very old movie would look something like this:

Colored title cards or simply the names of characters appearing in the movie. The problem with these opening titles is that they have absolutely nothing to do with the story. They don’t built anticipation, they don’t set the theme/mood/emotions. They work literally as a first opening page in a book. Saul Bass realized this and saw a great opportunity for improvement in this area.

“My initial thoughts about what a title can do was to set mood and the prime underlying core of the film’s story, to express the story in some metaphorical way. I saw the title as a way of conditioning the audience, so that when the film actually began, viewers would already have an emotional resonance with it.” [Saul Bass]

One of his most famous work were definitely the opening titles in The Man with the Golden Arm: When the reels of film for Otto Preminger’s controversial new drugs movie, The Man with the Golden Arm, arrived at US movie theatres in 1955, a note was stuck on the cans – “Projectionists – pull curtain before titles”.

Until then, the lists of cast and crew members which passed for movie titles were so dull that projectionists only pulled back the curtains to reveal the screen once they’d finished. But Preminger wanted his audience to see The Man with the Golden Arm’s titles as an integral part of the film.
Watch the opening titles of The Man with the Golden Arm in the video below:

Knowing, that this movie is about a character addicted to heroin, the white lines (of heroin) in the credit titles make a perfect sense, you kinda get the feeling on emotional level what’s going to come next.

Thanks to Saul Bass, directors like Alfred Hitchcock, Otto Preminger or Martin Scorsese could tell their stories right from the very first frame, in a very cinematic way.

Four motivations for shaky camera in the Bourne trilogy

Hong Kong cinematographers have a neat saying about shaky camera: “The handheld camera covers 3 mistakes: Bad acting, bad set design, and bad directing (1).”  However, in certain cases, the shaky (handheld) camera can be used to tell a story, instead of covering the mistakes.

Paul Greengrass (director of the Bourne trilogy) certainly didn’t invent the shaky camera, but he definitely popularized this technique. If you’ve seen the Bourne trilogy, you’ve probably noticed, that the camera almost never stops moving. But there is always a good motivation behind this movement.

Motivation for shaky camera in 4 points

1. World he lives in

Jason Bourne (the main character) is constantly on the run, chasing or being chased by somebody, escaping from somewhere, looking for or protecting somebody. The shaky camera helps to portray the world he lives in – fast paced erratic world.

2. His inner conflict

Additional motivation for the shaky camera comes from his inner conflict – he doesn’t know who he is, what he has done and why, because he suffers from amnesia. This certainly adds to the shakiness.

3. The way his mind works

At certain point there is a dialogue scene between Jason Bourne and his former collegue Nicky Parsons. The camera is constantly moving, which would be really annoying in “normal” dialogue, but in this case, it’s perfectly ok. It shows how his mind works. Even if they are just talking, he is always alert. He is checking the escape routes, looking for people who might be dangerous etc. His mind never rests, and so does the camera.

4. Shaky cam as a stylistic choice

Finally, shaky camera was a stylistic choice. In action scenes, (together with fast editing) it injects energy to the scene, creates chaos (which is sometimes desirable) and in a sense, it may add more realism and authenticity to the specific scene.

When it bothers me and why

  • Unfortunately, the shaky camera became really overused. Sometimes, I am watching a (dialogue) scene and the camera is constantly moving and that really annoys me, because I can’t figure out, what was the motivation behind it (and I don’t count covering mistakes as a good motivation).
  • Second reason why it bothers me is that it takes away from the actor’s performances, if the camera is always moving, I just can’t pay attention to them (because I’m trying to figure out, why the camera is moving).
  • Finally, making the camera steady is far more difficult than making it shaky. That being said, shaky camera will always look cheap to me, unless it is used on purpose, to tell the story.

Also, when I did my research on this topic, I’ve found, that it makes certain people physically sick and spoils the movie for them.

Anyway, I wouldn’t say that shaky camera is necessarily a bad thing, but it can be really annoying if used randomly and without any purpose. If you haven’t watched the Bourne trilogy yet, or if you are looking for good examples of shaky camera, watch the story of Jason Bourne.

Resources

  1. Unsteadicam chronicles

Links

Establishing scene using sound in Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol

As a small kid, I used to watch serial called JAG. I remember, that with each new scene, you would see a green text appearing in the lower left corner of the screen, telling you what time is it, place and location. It is a great way to establish the scene, but there is even better way.

Stories happen in time and place, which (both time and place) can be characterized by soundscape or acoustic environment. The acoustic environment can be created by sound effects, spoken word, music or all of these elements in combination. What is really important here is that it really doesn’t matter so much which elements will be used, but how they’ll be used and to which purpose.

For example, if you were to establish a movie scene using only acoustic environment (without any visuals), you’d probably think a lot about the sounds, which are really specific for the given time and location.

Time

The sounds you’ll hear during the day will be probably much different from sounds you’ll hear during the night, the same holds true for seasons like summer or winter. Sound can also be used to establish time period as well, think of sounds of 19th century (steam locomotive)  or sounds of 1990’s (tape recorder).

Place

Sound works also very well for establishing locations. You could for instance use sounds of drilling machine, cable crane etc., to establish a construction site. Or a dialogue between doctor and nurse to establish a hospital environment. Or music.

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011)

At certain point in the movie, IMF team led by Ethan Hunt has to go to India. The scene starts with the picture above, but what’s interesting here is the music playing in the background.

You’ll hear light percussions, sitar and other instruments typical for eastern music. In other words, the music establishes the location, telling us that we are in India now.

If we come back to establishing scene (both time and place) using only sound, we have to mention also some drawbacks. This method works mostly only with general locations (like construction site, but not specific, or 19th century, but not a specific year). For example, it would be really hard to establish the place where I live using only sound, unless someone would mention the name in the dialogue.

Nevertheless, if you have the opportunity to establish the scene using sound, by all means do it, it’s cinematic!