Case Study: Saul Bass

Saul Bass (1920-1996) was a commercial artist and a freelanced graphic designer. He studied at the arts students league. He was best known for his use of simple geometric shapes and their symbolism. Often, a singledominant image stands to deliver a punctual message.

Saul Bass was born on May 8, 1920, in New York City. He graduated from James Monroe High School in the Bronx and studied at the Art Students League in Manhattan until attending classes with György Kepes at Brooklyn College. He began his time in Hollywood doing print work for film ads, until he collaborated with filmmaker Otto Preminger to design the film poster for his 1954 film Carmen Jones. Preminger was so impressed with Bass's work that he asked him to produce the title sequence as well. This was when Bass first saw the opportunity to create something more than a title sequence, but to create something which would ultimately enhance the experience of the audience and contribute to the mood and the theme of the movie within the opening moments. Bass was one of the first to realize the creative potential of the opening and closing credits of a movie.

Bass' posters and titles have an uncany ability to capture the mood of a film with simple shapesand images. This was his preffered method as to using a boring photograph. Bass was heavily influenced by Bauhaus and russian constructivism.

During his 40-year career Bass worked for some of Hollywood's greatest filmmakers, including Alfred Hitchcock, Otto Preminger, Billy Wilder, Stanley Kubrick and Martin Scorsese. Amongst his most famous title sequences are the animated paper cut-out of a heroin addict's arm for Preminger's The Man with the Golden Arm, the text racing up and down that eventually becomes a high-angle shot of the United Nations building in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest, and the disjointed text that races together and apart in Psycho.

The Distribution Process

There are several critical things the distributor must consider in order to create a productive campaign:

Who is the target audience?
The distributor will think about the demographic and psychographic profile of the target audience. Demographic profile includes: gender, age, socio-economic class and ethnicity. There are many measures used for identifying psychographic profiles, however that most commonly used by advertisers is young and rubicam's 4Cs( Cross cultural consumer characterization)

What do the target audience do?
What magazines and newspapers do they read?Where do they travel and how?What are their interests? What other films are they likely to watch? The distributor will aim to define everything about the audience, in order to maximize profit for the film, by targeting advertising in the most appropriate places. The distributor will find out about their audience through surveys and data analysis and will divide their data into three areas:
Who the audience is
What they think
Their media

Is there a wider audience this film could appeal to?
Major studio projects are so successful because they are mainly family films. Distributors will look for secondary audiences or whether a film has mass audiences appeal, they may create a number of different poster campaigns for example in order to to appeal to these different audiences. This means they could advertise the film in trailers and posters if there are elements of these genres in the film.

What major cast or crew are involves in the project?
The distributor will consider how to maximize the exposure of key cast and crew, measuring the successful of their most recent productions will not only allow the distributor to see what audience particular stars attract and perhaps widen the audience appeal in the marketing campaign, but it will also allow them to see which stars or crew should feature prominently in the advertising campaign.

Audiences and Institutions

Audiences and Institutions

What is the purpose of a film distributor?
To help promote the film
To help release the film (to cinema/DVD)
To help gain recognition for the film
Take cut of the film's profit
Branding
Self Promote

A film distributor is the link between the producer and the exhibitors. The distributor markets the film, and develops an appropriate advertising campaign. Their aim is to get as many people as possible to see the film. The distribution company is in charge of getting the film out to audiences, this involves organizing for the film to receive an age certificate by regulation bodies, such as the BBFC and MPAA. Distribution includes marketing a film as well as providing the actual film to cinemas.

Lesson notes - Film Pitch

Film pitch

A pitch is a concise verbal presentation of an idea for a film or TV programme generally made by a screenwriter or director to a producer or studio executive in the hope of attaching development finance to pay for the production.

High concept of a pitch
First - A short sentance that sums up the whole film. E.g. 'hangover with women' - Bridesmades.
Second - People should already be understanding the building blocks of the film

NOT FINISHED!!!

Film Pitch

Media presentation film pitch

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Title Sequence Lesson Notes

Title Sequences

In this lesson we looked at the purposes of title sequences. The title sequence is the method in which the cinematic films or television programs present their titles, key production and the cast members. The purpose of a title sequence is to give you an introduction to the film, introduce the characters and establish the scene. Here are the codes and conventions of a title sequence:

Details of the cast and crew

The films title

An introduction to the characters

Introduction of the setting

Indication of historical period

Information regarding the mood and tone

Introduction to the signature theme tune

Information about the film's genre

Patterns and types of editing that will be echoed in the remainder of the film

Mise-en-scene and cinematography

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Title sequences presentationKyle Cooper

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Groundhog day, Title sequence!

Zombieland Opening Sequence

Analysis of the opening sequence of zombieland.

Throughout the opening sequence of zombieland we see the names of the cast and the productions, which are in red. Red can be a connotation of blood, which gives us a hint to the genre of the film. While this does look like a horror there are also shots in the sequence that makes us believe that this film is also of a comedy genre. Straight away in the sequence you can tell that this movie is about a zombie attack, as during the whole of the sequence it continuously shows citizens being attacked by zombies.

In the first shot of the sequence, this is when the music starts to play. The song that is being played is by metallica, this song is very good for this sequence, it is fast paced, and it is metal so this goes well with the sequence. The music starts at the begining of the sequence, when you hear this music you can tell that the film is going to be exciting and action-packed. The shot is of a zombie throwing someone of the railings on the stairs, this shows you that the film is about a zombie attack.

The font that is being used, and the colour of the font gives you an indication that this film involves blood. The font colour is red, which is a connotation of blood, and also the font is quite big, this could suggest to the audience that there is a lot of blood displayed throughout the film.

NOT FINISHED!

Continuity Sequence

For our continuity piece we had to make a short film, in the short film it had to be someone walking into a room, sitting down, having a conversation with someone and then leaving. This is the finished product of our continuity sequence. In my group was myself, Taylor Smith and Jack Coribel.

I enjoyed this piece of coursework, it was very enjoyable and very good experience, I contributed with the storyboard, I helped with both coming up with the idea and drawing the storyboard. I also acted in the sequence, I didn't enjoy this part as I find myself to be a little bit camera shy, but we didn't have anyone else to play the part so I just done it. Editing the sequence wasn't a problem for us, as Taylor and I both have experience with using the macs so this part of the coursework was fine. However, whilst we were editing the sequence we did manage to find a few mistakes, which resulted in us having to go back and re-shoot, several times, which was very frustrating. The overall experience of this piece of coursework was good, I feel like our group worked really well together. I look forward to the next time we have to do a similar piece of coursework, however if we were to do something similar I hope to have a different role in the filming process.