Saul Bass

D.O.B:  May 8th 1920, New York

D.O.D: April 25th 1996, Los Angeles California


Bass graduated from James Monroe High School in the Bronx and studied part-time at the Art Students League in Manhattan. He began his Hollywood career in 1940's. He began designing print advertisements for films such as: Champion(1949), Death of a Salesman(1951) and The Moon is Blue(1953). Bass became widely known in the film industry after creating the opening sequence Otto Premingers The Man with the Golden Arm(1955). He decided to design/create an innovative title sequence to match the films controversial subject. 



Screenwriter, Nicholas Pileggi, said of Saul and Elaine, "Eventually you have the pleasure of seeing the Basses have knocked you right out of the ballpark. They have boiled it down to four minutes." This highlights Bass' skill in graphic design and how he could take pages of ideas and represent them in a four minute tile opening sequence. His talent allowed him to create sequences that represented the film in only a few minutes. 

Bass once described that his main goal was 'Try to reach for a simple, visual phrase that tells you that what the picture is all about and evokes the essence of the story."Saul respected his work and designs. He was modest about his work. His work was abstract and it had a massive impact on the film industry from the 1940's and so forth. His work changed how title sequences were looked at overall, he was the first to bring an opening sequence to life and show the power of graphic design.

Preliminary Task - Evaluation

In the preliminary task, our video was very accurate to our plan and the shots we planned to use worked really well with our idea, none of the shots needed changing. I thought the match-on-action and how it was edited was done really well. This is because the transition between shots was smooth and the action was the same in both shots. Some of the filming looked unprofessional because of the wobbling of the camera where we were trying to film the close angle of the shoes at the beginning of the video. This can be improved by making a roller so the camera doesn't have to be dragged along the floor. This will create a smoother looking shot, making the video look more professional overall. I think the filming is the biggest are that needs improving for my coursework. This is because it was the longest process of the production of the video. This needs to be improved as in some scenes in the video created the camera shaky or out of focus which ruins the effect of the shot and can miss key parts in a scene like facial expression which can be important for a story line.

Preliminary Task - Planning & Finished Video

Shot 1 Close Up Shot Character 1 strolling through the corridor

Shot 2 Long Shot Character 1 walks towards door

Shot 3 Medium Shot Character 1 takes a heavy inhale

Shot 4 Close Up Focus on the door knob being opened by character 1.

Shot 5 Close up  Focus on character 1 coming through door (Only on the chest)

Shot 6 Long shot Character 1 walks to his seat where character 2 is sat opposite.

Shot 7 Close up Over shoulder shot of Character 1

Shot 8 Close up Over shoulder shot of character 2

Shot 9 Low angle, medium shot Looking up at Character 1.