The Art of the Card

THE ART OF THE CARD A Brief Look at Title Cards Through the Decades

2

3

THE ART OF THE CARD A Brief Look at Title Cards Through the Decades

4

5

THE ART OF THE CARD A Brief Look at Title Cards Through the Decades

6

Copyright Š 2020 by Lindsey Musil All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Printed in the United States of America Published by First Printing, 2020 ISBN 0-9000000-0-0 Catalog Design Lindsey Musil Typography Krona One, Yvonne Schuttler: Krona One is a low contrast semi-extended style sans serif, used for both small sizes and for larger display settings. It was inspired by hand lettering on early 20th century Swedish posters.

Avenir Next Condensed, Adrian Frutiger, Atira Kobayashi: Avenir Next Condensed is an expanded reworking of the original font family, Avnir which was produced as an alternative to the Futura design.

7

CONTENTS

Introduction..............................................................9 The Silent Era: The 1920s.....................................10 The Beginning of Sound: The 1930s...................18 Hollywood’s Golden Age: The 1940s.................26 The Saul Bass Takeover: The 1950s....................34 High Renaissance of Title Design: The 1960s...............................................46 New Hollywood: The 1970s...............................60 Computer Aided Design: The 1980s..................72 The Decade of Grunge: The 1990s.....................82 Integration of the Card and Narrative: The 2000s...........................................92 The Modern Age: The 2010s............................106

8

Acknowledgements..........................................120

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION The Beauty of the Title Card Title cards or ‘intertitles’, are most often what set up the mood and feeling of the film. Although sometimes we watch a few scenes first, the film is never truly introduced to us until we see the title in text across the screen. During the beginning stages of cinema, these also served a purpose as the ‘dialogue intertitle’ and was used to provide descriptive material to the audience. Today, these refer to the text and logo material shown at the beginning of films that set the movie up for the viewer.

This catalog truly began when I became more fascinated with typography and found myself looking to opening sequences for inspiration. Too often I’d realize I was paying more attention to the opening than I’d like to admit! I began to screengrab a few favorites throughout the years and kept them in a pinterest board along with others I’d find along the way. What I loved was the connection of how these typefaces were more often then not specially designed for the film it was paired with, making them even more memorable. All in all, I realized title cards brought together a few of my favorite things: graphic design, film, and typography.

The pages to follow are a collection of title cards spanning from the silent films of the 1920’s to the modern films of the 2010’s. Through various typefaces and art techniques, this book includes title cards such as ‘North by Northwest’ designed by Saul Bass and ‘Seven’ by Kyle Cooper along with modern cards such as ‘Annihilation’ by Matt Curtis. In general, this book shows a wide variety of my personal favorites throughout the years along with ones that have made a large impact in the field of title card design.

Simply put, title cards are sometimes seen of as a lost art, but are truly what encapsulates the film for the viewer. These cards show what happens in the marriage of typography and film and how it alters the viewer’s perception of the film. A majority of the films here do not have synopsises and this is to have the reader feel through the just the card itself what the movie could be about.

9

1920s: The Silent Era During the silent film era, film titling was a utilitarian affair; title sequences plainly listed cast and crew, while intertitles were used to convey dialogue between characters as well as narrative or descriptive information in the absence of synchronous sound. Whether it was the title sequence or the title cards, the key for early title designers was clarity and readability for the audience — simple text on black cards framed with basic ornamentation was the standard. Occasionally the type or framing would be slightly more elaborate, sometimes including cursive flourishes or the initials of the studio or the director, but anything more was generally considered superfluous.

Film titles during this time were hand-illustrated by lettering artists and typesetters and later photographed and incorporated into the movie. Studios engaged sign painters and those familiar with advertising art who had knowledge of typography to work on film title design.

Consequently, like those influenced by Art Nouveau and Expressionism in the 1910s and early 1920s, film title cards of this era reflected modernist design with geometric forms, lines and angles and an overall modern look.

10

11

THE CABINET

OF DR. CALIGARI (1920)

12

Title Designer: Unknown Directed by: Robert Weine The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari follows a titular doctor and a deranged hypnotist who uses a troubled sleepwalker named Cesare to commit a series of murders. Described by critic Roger Ebert as “the first true horror film,” Weine’s masterwork of German Expressionist cinema also features the first true horror movie title sequence. Featuring sharp, angular typography designed to match the disturbing subject matter and twisted visual landscape of the film, the highly stylized titles and intertitles of Caligari echo the lettering found in the work of contemporary Expressionist illustrators like Josef Fenneker. This title card simply goes against the established rules set for title design during this time and breaks the mold for future title cards.

In addition to its groundbreaking title sequence and intertitles, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari also features one of the earliest known examples of situational typography interacting with a scene through the use of visual special effects, in this case stop-motion animation.

During a climactic scene in which the doctor descends into madness, the wall standing between the intertitle text and the on-screen action breaks down completely. The phrase “Du Musst Caligari Werden” (“You Must Become Caligari”) appears out of thin air, repeating, growing out of the very trees, the manifestation of his insanity.

For the 1921 North American release, the title card was designed by Katharine Hilliker. Hilliker would eventually go on to become a screenwriter and playwright, also wrote the prologue and epilogue of the US release print. The designer of the German intertitles remains a mystery.

13

NOSFERATU (1922) Title Designer: Robert Gray Directed by: F.W. Murnau

THE IRON HORSE (1924) Title Designer: Charles Darnton Directed by: John Ford

14

1920S: THE SILENT ERA

THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME (1923) Title Designer: Unknown Directed by: Wallace Worsley

PETER PAN (1924) Title Designer: Unknown Directed by: Herbert Brenon

THE GOLD RUSH (1925) Title Designer: Unknown Directed by: Charles Chaplin

15

THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (1925) Title Designer: Raymond L. Schrock Directed by: Carl Laemmle The combination of merging multiple layers in the opening frames communicates the eerie quality of the movie and is seen as an advanced technique for the time. Along with this, the Victorian-style flourishes to the type itself correlates nicely with the opera location.

THE ADVENTURES OF PRINCE ACHMED (1926) Title Designer: Lotte Reiniger Directed by: Carl Koch

16

1920S: THE SILENT ERA

METROPOLIS (1927) Title Designer: Fritz Lang Directed by: Fritz Lang The influence of Modernism, Art Nouveau, and Expressionism took over within this title card as we see geometric forms, lines, and angles revolving in an overall modern look. It plays on art deco forms associated with modern industry and cosmopolitan cities. This is one of the earliest examples of an actual title sequence as opposed to static title cards.

BLACKMAIL (1929) Title Designer: Unknown Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock

17

1930s: The Beginning of Sound By the 1930s, Hollywood studios were producing musicals and nearly all talkies: a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. In fact, sound saved Hollywood in the 1930s as movies, with all their manufactured glamour, provided audiences with an escape from the hardships of the Great Depression. Movie producers invested in big budget films with a growing commercial awareness of advertising and overall packaging.

Film title design conveyed the tone of a movie through communicative and expressive lettering and layout. Film title artists began to use fancier lettering and lettering effects in the 1930s, including mixing fonts; using two-tone lettering; adding drop shadows to set letters apart from the background; and incorporating images that represented the main characters or setting of the film. By this era, title card began to serve a narrative function and were designed to prepare the viewer for the mood and story of the film.

18

19

HORSE FEATHERS (1932) Title Designer: Unknown Directed by: Norman McLeod

THE INVISIBLE MAN (1933) Title Designer: Charles D. Hall (Art Director) Directed by: James Whale

20

1930S: THE BEGINNING OF SOUND

KING KONG (1933) Title Designer: Pacific Title & Art Studio Directed by: Merien C. Cooper

BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935) Title Designer: Charles D. Hall (Art Director) Directed by: James Whale

THE TESTAMENT OF DR. MABUSE (1935) Title Designer: Unknown Directed by: Fritz Lang

21

MY MAN

GODFREY (1936)

22

Title Designer: Unknown Directed by: Gregory La Cava My Man Godfrey’s film title sequence establishes a mood for the film by integrating typography with storyline. In this, the camera pans across the names displayed like neon signs on city buildings. It happens gradually, with the studio first, following the actor and actress’s names, and lastly with the name of the film itself.

This sequence goes on to influence many film sequences after it, especially films located in New York City. The focus on the lights and the city brings together a atmospheric mood for the viewer that is adored by many.

23

INTERMEZZO (1936) Title Designer: Alva Lundin Directed by: Gustaf Molander

MAKE WAY FOR TOMORROW (1937) Title Designer: Unknown Directed by: Leo McCarey

24

1930S: THE BEGINNING OF SOUND

LE QUAI DE BRUMES (1938) Title Designer: Charles D. Hall (Art Director) Directed by: James Whale

THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD (1938) Title Designer: Unknown Directed by: Michael Curtiz, WIlliam Keighley

25

1940s: Hollywood’s Golden Age By the 1940s, another war shakes up the movie industry. Many stars are off to fight and many new ones are created. Creativity abounds on the screen with several classics using the war itself for a backdrop. Our movies grow darker, in character and setting, as the style later known as film noir fills the screen. Beyond crime other subject matter becomes more complicated, even more mature, despite the continued restrictions of the Production Code.

This decade in cinema history is known as the Hollywood Golden Age. This is the last decade before color is fully introduced the cinematic atmosphere and to the art of of title cards. This era continues on to be influenced by the art movements at the time, like Abstract Expressionism. Title cards serve another purpose at this time as intermission announcements for the audience.

26

27

HIS GIRL FRIDAY (1940) Title Designer: Unknown Directed by: Howard Hawk

I WAKE UP SCREAMING(1941) Title Designer: Unknown Directed by: H. Bruce Humberstone The credits here are spelled out in lights superimposed over the New York City skyline. It is seen as a preface to the graphic matching of Hitchcock’s ‘North by Northwest’. The technique can also be seen in the 1936 film ‘My Man Godfrey’, which handles the technique robustly, placing typography in the milieu of buildings and giving it

28

reflections. A modern equivalent to this is the sequence to David Fincher’s ‘Panic Room’, featuring glossy 3D typography placed directly among the buildings, skewing and slanting anew.

1940S: HOLLYWOOD’S GOLDEN AGE

CASABLANCA (1943) Title Designer: Unknown Directed by: Norman McLeod

THE MALTESE FALCON (1941) Title Designer: Unknown Directed by: Norman McLeod

HANGMEN ALSO DIE !

(1943) Title Designer: Unknown Directed by: Norman McLeod

29

1940S: HOLLYWOOD’S GOLDEN AGE

FALLEN ANGEL (1945) Title Designer: Unknown Directed by: Otto Preminger

IT RAINS ON OUR LOVE (1946) Title Designer: Alva Lundin Directed by: Norman McLeod

THE BLUE DAHLIA (1946) Title Designer: Hans Driere (Art Direction) Directed by: George Marshall

30

1940S: HOLLYWOOD’S GOLDEN AGE

IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946)

Title Designer: Unknown Directed by: Frank Capra

31

LA BELLE

ET LA BETE

(1946)

32

Title Designer: Unknown Directed by: Jean Coctau, Rene Clement La Belle et la Bête, or ‘Beauty and the Beast’ directed by Jean Cocteau with uncredited directing assistance from René Clément, is a dark and lyrical adaptation of the well-known fairy tale by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont. Made in 1946 in the immediate aftermath of WWII, the film gave French audiences something they deeply desired: a rich and enticing fantasy, an escape from post-war drudgery.

The film is lauded as one of the most technically impressive of the era but its production was fraught with problems. The crew had to contend with a scarcity of film and a shortage of electricity, often having to work by candlelight. Cocteau himself was in poor health with a serious skin condition and nearly died from blood poisoning. This is where René Clément stepped in, directing during Cocteau’s absences.

Despite these difficulties, Cocteau, Clément, and their team succeeded in creating a cinematic jewel, one of those rare films that captures a true sense of enchantment. Cocteau intended for his film to be a realistic rendition of a classic tale, to uplift and inspire an adult audience and give them something to remember what it was like to look at the world with childlike wonder. In the opening credits, he breaks the fourth wall, writing the credits on a chalkboard and addressing the audience directly with a short preamble about childlike sympathy.

33

1950s: The Saul Bass Takeover The 1950s along with 1940s marked the Post World War II era.Hollywood studios ramped up the cinema experience in the 1950s as the advent of television threatened the industry.

They created movies as big and colorful as they could, with historical epics, travelogues and musicals projected on the new super-sized screen formats such as Cinemascope, VistaVision, and Cinerama.

Television companies employed professional graphic designers to create their opening sequences and seeing the success of television, filmmakers adopted the same strategy.

Graphic designers created title sequences with a new sophistication that served the story and the director’s vision and intent.

Typography and imagery became heavily connected during film titles of this time with type embedded in physical objects, mimicking shapes and forms, and being fully integrated into the design of the title sequence. Along with this, film title design maintained an aesthetic defined primarily by symbolic geometry, clean typography and bold graphic forms. Lastly, as film titles broke free of their prescriptive predecessors, designers employed a variety of animation techniques to add movement and choreography to title sequences.

This decade introduces one of the most legendary designers, Saul Bass. Bass reimagined the title sequence and changed how many viewed sequences as a whole. “For the average audience, the credits tell them there’s only three minutes left to eat popcorn… I aim to set up the audience for what’s coming; make them expectant,” says Bass. All in all, the 1950’s can be seen as the beginning of the Saul Bass takeover on graphic design and title card sequences.

34

35

THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD (1951) Title Designer: Unknown Directed by: Christian Nyby

WHITE CHRISTMAS (1954) Title Designer: Unknown Directed by: Michael Curtiz This was the first movie to be shown in Paramount’s new VistaVision format. This was a higher resolution, widescreen variant of 35mm film created by engineers at Paramount Pictures that allowed the projection print to have a finer grain. This can be seen right off the bat in the background for the Paramount logo, which was created especially for

36

the wide-screen projection and appears more realistic and has more depth than before. It was more clear, more sharp, and the expanded width gave a greater feeling of depth.

1950S: THE SAUL BASS TAKEOVER

DIAL M FOR MURDER (1954) Title Designer: Unknown Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock

THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM(1955) Title Designer: Saul Bass Directed by: Otto Preminger Bass created an arresting image of a distorted, disjointed arm. The semi-abstract form helped distance the image from the harsh realities of shooting up, although they are implicit in the (dis) figuration. As well as being disconnected from a body, the black arm has the appearance of being petrified and transformed into something else, just as the character is transformed by addiction.

Here was modern art on screen, Saul stated that, “The intent of this opening was to create a mood spare, gaunt, with a driving intensity… [that conveyed] the distortion and jaggedness, the disconnectedness and disjointedness of the addict’s life the subject of the film.”

37

THE SHRIKE (1955) Title Designer: Saul Bass Directed by: Jose Perrer

38

1950S: THE SAUL BASS TAKEOVER

STORM CENTER (1956)

Title Designer: Saul Bass Directed by: Daniel Taradash

39

1950S: THE SAUL BASS TAKEOVER

BONJOUR TRISTESSE (1958)

Title Designer: Saul Bass Directed by: Otto Preminger

40

1950S: THE SAUL BASS TAKEOVER

VERTIGO (1958) Title Designer: Saul Bass Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock There is a threshold in art and design where a work can become so iconic as to transcend its own scope and become a symbol for its medium.

Consider Warhol’s soup cans or Mondrian’s color fields, or — to bring it closer to home — Saul Bass’ iconic AT&T or United Airlines logos. And just as it would be difficult to find an American unfamiliar with these works, so too would it be difficult to find a moviegoer unfamiliar with the title sequence to Vertigo. Credit Bernard Herrmann’s haunting score or Bass’ odd synthesis of sensual Kim Novak closeups and spirographic imagery, but it’s likely an alchemy of the three that makes the Vertigo titles an enduring classic.

graphic direction and Hermann’s score, folding his designs into their tried-and-true audio-visual template. The resulting sequence is a landmark work both for Bass and the title industry, framing the film’s premise through evocativeyet-unlikely imagery and Hitchcock’s unique branding eye.

The spirographic images (called Lissajous waves, technically) were contributed by artist John Whitney, a pioneer of computer arts and a longtime animator at UPA, a commercial animation studio well-known for their modern aesthetic and experimental techniques. (In fact, Bass would again use a UPA alum, Bill Melendez — best known as the Peanuts sole animator — three years later in his sequence for It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.)

While seemingly unrelated to the story and perhaps even too modern for their own good, Whitney’s contributions to Vertigo were validated by Bass’

41

ANATOMY OF

A MURDER (1959)

42

Title Designer: Saul Bass Directed by: Otto Preminger The opening title sequence of this 1959 crime drama is a classic piece of graphic design — giving the movie a strong, timeless indentity that still inspires filmmakers to this day.

Back at the beginning of silent film, movie titles were only of interest to producers because of the legal and copyright information they contained about the film being shown. They eventually came to be used to present cast and crew member information as well. And it was the role of a lettering artist to design these slates.

Thanks to pioneers like Pablo Ferro, Maurice Binder or Saul Bass, these static informative slates were eventually transformed, giving birth to the discipline of film title sequence in the early ’50s. The marriage of graphic design and moving images created this new way of introducing movies, which not only informed the audience of its crew, but also played a primordial role in giving each movie its own unique identity.

the director Otto Preminger. Then each piece of the body is disassembled and presented like it is part of a puzzle. Using simple elements like cutouts of paper on a uniform grey background, this intro sequence has traversed decades by keeping its cutting-edge quality. No high technology was needed — only a playground in which a graphic designer could think of an idea to introduce the film.

Today, the Anatomy of a Murder sequence still inspires as one of the greatest opening titles of our time, its influence evident in movies like Catch Me If You Can, Monsters, Inc. and Thank You For Smoking, which introduces you to the subject of the movie right before it starts. These title sequences all have one of the qualities Bass introduced in his Anatomy of a Murder sequence: they give a strong, distinct identity to the movie.

In Anatomy of a Murder, Saul Bass literalised the film title by presenting each member of the crew next to disassembled body parts. He starts by showing the entire body presenting

43

NORTH BY

NORTHWEST (1959)

44

Title Designer: Saul Bass Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock Perhaps the best way to frame Hitchcock’s 1959 thriller North by Northwest is to examine the least conspicuous word in its title: ‘by’. In the context of the film, ‘by’ represents a crossroads — a point of intersection between two paths that would otherwise never meet.

Saul Bass establishes this theme in both the tone and design of the main title sequence — his second Hitchcock outing, following Vertigo the previous year. Almost immediately, the open canvas of forest green is jailed by a series of intersecting lines, setting the ground rules for the sequence by corralling the sans serif title blocks into vertical columns, rising and falling as though tethered to one another.

The sequence is split into three distinct tiers — the first being entirely graphic, with the titles superimposed over the gridded background. In the second, the graphics dissolve into the reflective façade of the C.I.T. Building in Manhattan — the location of Thornhill’s agency — perfectly mimicking its orthographic window framework. The third tier brings us down to ground level, observing the anonymous masses navigating the Big Apple.

Bass had experimented with graphic animation techniques as far back as The Seven Year Itch in 1955, but the title cards themselves had always remained static. North by Northwest is often credited as being the first sequence to use kinetic type — or simply, type in motion. It is also one of the first examples of situational type in film, where the text is integrated into the environment by matching its perspective, a technique famously revisited by Picture Mill for David Fincher’s Panic Room in 2002.

Although Bass was already an established designer by 1959, North by Northwest is likely his first truly modernist title sequence, adopting a clean, minimal style and a veneer of graphic sophistication previously unseen in his title work or elsewhere in mainstream film. It’s a style that he carried into his next two projects, Psycho and Ocean’s Eleven, and would revisit almost 30 years later for Goodfellas in 1990.

45

1960s: High Renaissance of Title Design A new generation of filmmakers hit the scene in the 1960s and introduced moviegoers to new subject matters and styles. Their auteur style of filmmaking was accompanied by what is considered to be the high renaissance of film title design.

The new belief that graphic design would sell led to the mid-century advertising revolution fuel sophisticating film title sequences along with the advent of iconic images and logos derived from these sequences. In the 1960s, film title design departed from the clean and geometric forms of the 1950s to a more relaxed, whimsical and quirky style that included hand illustrations.

Filmmakers and title designers incorporated more motion photography in opening sequences, reflecting the auteur theory of filmmaking at this time. This decade is linked to the American New Wave and introduces us to Pablo Ferro, one of the masters of film title design with a career starting in the 1960s and spanning four decades.

46

47

PSYCHO (1960) Title Designer: Saul Bass Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock It’s safe to say that after half a century of critical writing about Psycho, there are few stones left unturned. The same can also be said of Bass’ now infamous opening title sequence. Designed on a $21k budget, it is likely his most significant and familiar accomplishment in the eyes of cinephiles and laymen alike.

Admittedly, Bass does not give his audience much to work with. Like the minimalists who came before him and his modernist contemporaries, Bass’ favorite route from idea to execution was usually the shortest — and there are few routes shorter than the one taken in Psycho. He uses a series of simple white bars to usher in the sans-serif titles and escort them back out again. Although these lines come from different areas of the screen, they never once break formation or intersect. Likewise, the animation of these lines and the type itself are just as reserved — every object has a path from which it does not deviate. On, off, left, right, up, down, black, white — those are Bass’s self-imposed restrictions on Psycho, and he employs them with dramatic effect.

Therein also lies the brilliance of Bass’ title sequence. In the space of a few short minutes, with his minimal toolkit and Bernard Herrmann’s jagged score, Bass creates a parallel visual tension

48

to the film that tells the audience everything they need to know about the plot, without saying much of anything at all. He artfully sets the tone by asking the viewer to read between the lines — quite literally — but he also asks that we read into them as well.

1960S: HIGH RENAISSANCE OF TITLE DESIGN

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (1962)

Title Designer: Stephen Frankfurt Directed by: Robert Mulligan

49

WALK ON

THE WILD SIDE

(1959)

50

Title Designer: Saul Bass, Elaine Bass Directed by: Edward Dmytryk For this film, now regarded as one of the all-time Bass classics, Saul and Elaine decided upon a live-action title sequence starring a black tomcat on the prowl, as a metaphor for the “back-alley conflicts” within a film set in the red-light district of New Orleans during the Depression.Saul described the title sequence thus: “The film’s setting is New Orleans in the early thirties, and deals with the disenfranchised, tough, seamy characters of a despairing time. Symbolic of this is the black cat and its movement through this environment. The title opens with him emerging from a culvert and looking around. We watch him prowl through the back alleys, roam through his territory, meet another cat, an outsider, a quick fight, the intruder scuttles off. The cat resumes his stealthy ‘Walk on the Wild Side.’”

The feline eyes and paws keep moving to the bold, sexy rhythm of Elmer Bernstein’s jazz-like score while the credits come and go. When the miniature drama shifts to a staccatolike fight, horns blare out as the cuts occur, in one of the best Bass/Bernstein collaborations. Saul recalled:

“Walk on the Wild Side was one of my very early live-action titles. I decided I would, in this title, try to come to grips with what seemed a challenging aspect of creative endeavor. And that is, to deal with ordinary things, things we know so well that we’ve ceased to see them. And deal with them in a way that allows us to understand them anew. The challenge was how to restore our original view of a cat, when it was new, strange, exotic (perhaps even before our point of memory), and transform it into a pervasive presence.

We used various devices. We overcranked. That dramatically increased the size of the cat. The slower the motion, the greater the apparent body and weight, because big cats, leopards, move more ponderously than small domestic cats.

Then we closed in on the cat’s paw. Something one never sees ordinarily. Overcranked and close up, the way that paw meets the ground forces you to reexamine the whole notion of what this animal is.”

51

DR. NO. (1962) Title Designer: Maurice Binder Directed by: Terence Young

THE HAUNTING (1963) Title Designer: Unknown Directed by: Robert Wise

52

1960S: HIGH RENAISSANCE OF TITLE DESIGN

BUNNY LAKE IS MISSING (1963) Title Designer: Saul Bass Directed by: Otto Preminger One of the best examples of a simple yet smart Saul Bass idea is the main title sequence for Bunny Lake is Missing. The film is about an emotionally disturbed person involved in the disappearance of a child. To hint at the character’s state of mind, a hand tears shapes out of a black screen, each hole revealing another credit. The torn edges are jagged and help to set the mood of the film. It ends with the shape of a girl being torn out of the paper, as if she’s missing from the sheet of paper (which is then used again in the poster). It seems like such a simple idea but getting there is difficult.

It proves that basic shapes, colors, and compositions in the hands of an experienced artist can become something magical.

53

DR.

STRANGELOVE

(1964)

54

Title Designer: Pablo Ferro Directed by: Stanley Kubrick Having been first hired by Kubrick to produce the trailer for the film, Ferro was then asked to produce the opening title sequence as well. It was his first foray into title design.

A true collaboration with Kubrick, the sequence prepares the audience for a loopy, satirical romp through hot love and Cold War. But first, an ominous narrator warns of a doomsday device. As we float above a field of clouds, the voice glides cold and deadpan over the stark sound of the wind. Next, a kind of phallic apparatus appears accompanied by “Try A Little Tenderness”, at once disarming and bizarre.

Planes in flight come together in a kind of mechanical copulation, up and down, their movement bumbling yet mesmerizing for the viewer.

but utterly individual. It was all done by hand, with grease pencil on glass.

The titles to Dr. Strangelove remain delightfully evocative to this day and have become one of Pablo Ferro’s most wellknown works. The combination of aircraft footage, Johnson’s arrangement, and Ferro’s quirky lettering presents us with a number of tongue-in-cheek cues, and we are formally prepped for a comedy grounded in harsh technicalities but light as air.

Pablo Ferro’s loose letterforms and slack compositions superimposed over aircraft footage represented a distinct departure from American title design of the time. Prior to 1966, the aesthetic of main titles was defined primarily by designers such as the Basses, Binder, and Brownjohn and their symbolic geometry, clean typography, and bold graphic forms. Alternatively, Ferro’s lettering, variously squat, long, and lean, allows the footage to peek through, unobtrusive

55

ROSEMARY’S

BABY (1968)

56

Title Designer: Stephen Frankfurt, Wayne Fitzgerald Directed by: Roman Polanski As the faded Paramount Pictures logo graces the screen it is accompanied by several eerie and tension-filled musical notes, creating immediate suspicion that something is amiss. As the logo dissolves, the New York City horizon appears and the first credit text appears in a curly script, splashing a vibrant pastel pink across the dingy beige skyline of the modern city. The camera steadily pans across the city with few visible or truly noticeable landmarks in sight. The panning move seems almost unsure as more credits in the same pink script continue to dominate the screen. The camera soon comes to rest on an ominously gothic building in the middle of the city as the screen is dominated by the aggressive architecture of its peaked roof with multiple angles and edges dominating the screen, cutting through the pleasurable and comfortingly familiar typography on the screen. The darkened roof of what we will soon learn is The Bramford already feels unsettling and the guided camera movements which at first seem innocuous are now ominous.

which also featured tightly curled lettering set against an ominous building.

While title sequences have evolved a great deal since 1968, Rosemary’s Baby has remained a stand out of unsettling subtlety. The brightness and style of the typography and music choices separate it from its background, while the viewer is forced to reconcile the two elements presented to them on-screen as both comforting and unnerving. Alex Ross Perry’s Queen of Earth employed a similar style for its end titles, inherently referencing Rosemary’s Baby in the process.

Jordan Peele’s 2017 film Get Out employs a similar theme with turquoise text and Michael Abels’ main title theme “Sikiliza Kwa Wahenga” set against the unfamiliar backdrop, transforming the title card into a warning to the tell audience that something is amiss.

The style of typography used in the opening of Rosemary’s Baby is pulled directly from the first edition of the book,

57

1960S: HIGH RENAISSANCE OF TITLE DESIGN

PREPARATI LA BARA! (1968)

Title Designer: Iginino Lardani Directed by: Ferdinando Baldi

58

1960S: HIGH RENAISSANCE OF TITLE DESIGN

HELLO, DOLLY! (1969)

Title Designer: Unknown Directed by: Gene Kelly

59

1970s: New Hollywood After a recession in the 1970s, movies began to be driven by creative experimentation and the decade eventually became known as ‘New Hollywood’. Additionally, with a diminishing importance of credit information, designers no longer concentrated on text and paid more attention to overall effects. Some used a montage technique to condense space, time and information. This decade introduces us to the legendary title card designer, Dan Perri, who created main titles for more than 400 film and television projects, including ‘Star Wars’, ‘Taxi Driver’, ‘The Warriors’, and ‘Airplane!’.

60

61

TAKING OFF (1971) Title Designer: Elinor Bunin Munroe Directed by: Milos Forman

THE EXORCIST (1973) Title Designer: Dan Perri Directed by: WIllian Friedkin From Dan Perri: “It we wound up using due to experimenting as the film changed shape. Perri used the iconic typeface that has carried The Exorcist through its multiple reissues which was the font used on the first edition of the novel, a nod to its success and the audience’s familiarity with it. The title itself came directly from the novel that Blatty wrote and the text style was Weiss Initials.

62

1970S: NEW HOLLYWOOD

LIVE AND LET DIE (1973) Title Designer: Maurice Binder Directed by: Guy Hamilton

63

THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975) Title Designer: Camera Effects Ltd. Directed by: Jim Sharman

NEW YORK NEW YORK (1977) Title Designer: Dan Perri Directed by: Martin Scorsese

64

1970S: NEW HOLLYWOOD

SUSPIRIA (1977) Title Designer: Studio Mafera Directed by: Dario Argento

SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER (1977) Title Designer: Cirrus Productions Directed by: John Badham

It has been said that “meditation in movement has a thousand times more value than meditation in stillness.“ The credit sequence to Saturday Night Fever is absolute proof. This monumental opening title features John Travolta’s absurdly vacuous expression dovetailing with his awesome primal need to hustle and groove.

And that sets off some primordial urge even as you read this. But really, the feet are the thing ’cause they’re comin’ at ya!

65

STAR

WARS (1977)

66

Title Designer: Dan Perri Directed by: George Lucas To classify the opening of 1977’s Star Wars as just a title sequence would be misleading. As a standalone piece painstakingly crafted by title designers, designed to set the tone of the film, as well as introduce audiences to the fantastic world envisioned by director George Lucas, it certainly operates as a title sequence. But the Star Wars main title and crawl — or roll-up — is so much more than that. It is simultaneously one of the most iconic pieces of film branding ever created and one of the most indelible moments in all of cinema. In 1977 it was, quite simply, unlike anything our planet had ever seen.

For fans, experiencing the opening moments of a Star Wars movie is like finding a key to their childhood, a hidden door to that fairytale world of Jedi Knights and an evil empire. But beyond all the nostalgia, beyond all the hype, the original Star Wars opening is simply great filmmaking.

It’s a potent combination of music, typography, and sheer cinematic scale. As awesome as those screen-sized titles first appear, they are quickly dwarfed — both on-screen and in our imaginations — by the galaxy about to unfold.

After a thunderous Twentieth Century Fox fanfare and Lucasfilm logo, the movie begins with a phrase suitable for any tale of knights, princesses, and evil wizards: ”A long time ago…” The text is tinted light blue in order to make the subsequent main title reveal all the more dramatic.

Fade out and let the magic begin. Composer John Williams’ triumphant overture blasts the title card into frame and off to infinity as the crawl rolls into view. The familiar subtitle, Episode IV — A New Hope, would not be added until the film’s April 1981 re-release.

67

GREASE

(1978)

68

Title Designer: John Wilson, Fine Arts Films Directed by: Randal Kleiser The look of the opening reflects the limited animation style many commercial studios were producing in the 1970s, Seneca College animation history instructor Jim Zub explains, with 6 to 12 drawings per second (which was called “shooting on twos” or “shooting on fours”) and simple character designs to speed up production. “The shaky lines and broad caricatures reflect the kind of art a talented high school student would produce for their yearbook, channeling the high school musical’s demographic quite well,” Zub says.

“The look is relatively simple in terms of style and lacks the elegant figure work or delicate self-trace lines you’d see in Disney feature animation, but Wilson makes up for it with charm and energy that fits the film to a tee.”

The car and title lettering became the most recognizable and enduring part of Grease’s shorthand visual identity. The credit titles appear after plumes of smoke on billboards and signs, all in a varsity-style capitalized lettering created by Wilson, and the signature elongated capital serifs of his capital Ts are also used on the “T” Birds jackets in the costumes of the movie itself.

And in between, the cultural time capsule. A telephone booth piled high with people, in the manner of the fad challenges of the day, the hula hoop, saddle shoes, Davy Crockett hats, a juvenile delinquent biker straight out of The Wild One.

It’s worth a second (and third) look because it’s rich in visual clues and social history details that situate the action of the film in its cultural time. It’s essentially an animated time capsule of the era’s touchstones, with a few tongue-in-cheek easter eggs of the intervening years between the film’s 1959 setting and its 1977 shoot. These are so numerous and fly past so quickly that they might as well be subliminal but they set the tone and set up the narrative.

69

ALIEN

(1979)

70

Title Designer: Richard Greenberg Directed by: Ridley Scott We float over a planet as white forms appear, dismembered.

They work their way from the outside in, everything pointing to the centre. That is where they come from — the middle of you. As the pieces come together, forming a word denoting, in the most basic of terms, The Other, we are enveloped in a steady and dark tension.

Ridley Scott’s Alien was Richard and Robert Greenberg’s second major film project as a company, R/Greenberg Associates. The first, the teaser and opening title sequence to 1978’s Superman, gave them a start, but their second, Alien, established them as a creative voice. In this opening sequence, a disjointed version of Helvetica Black is used to instill a sense of foreboding, the letters broken into pieces, the space between them unsettling. This usage of type, in which letters are simultaneously message and medium, a lens through which ideas are both displayed and distorted, as structure and as obstruction, is a motif to which Title Designer Richard Greenberg would return again and again.

71

1980s: Computer Aided Design Computers and software – especially personal computers and the introduction of the Apple Mac in 1984 – revolutionized film title design giving many artists and designers the ability to experiment. Although that’s not to say they weren’t equally inventive in the pre-digital age.

Film titles during this era situated a point of view within an illusion of space and imagery and manipulated typography to be dimensional and move in ways that are physically impossible.

Additionally, with a diminishing importance of credit information, designers no longer concentrated on text and paid more attention to overall effects. Some used a montage technique to condense space, time and information.

This era introduced a new lense to title card design, as many of them began to look more like logos that live beyond the film itself. This approach is met with some criticism as some feel they have lost the art of the title, while some feel it is contributional as it gave us logos such as Back to the Future and Ghostbusters.

72

73

THE

SHINING (1980)

74

Title Designer: Chapman Beauvais & National Screen Service Directed by: Stanley Kubrick Sweeping across the landscape, the camera begins to follow a tiny yellow VW Beetle making its way up a winding road carved into the steep mountain cliffs. The lens frequently relegates the car to only a fraction of the frame, revealing how minuscule the vehicle is against the grandeur on which it is trespassing. This bird’s eye chase foreshadows the events that await the Torrence family and the harrowing themes of isolation and madness. The title sequence introduces viewers to Kubrick’s unorthodox vision of horror, as haunting landscapes and an unnerving score combine to cause an ineffable unease.

Unusually, the title sequence for The Shining also employs rolling credits, a design element normally reserved for end credits. When paired with the unsettling musical score, the austere Helvetica typeface — cryptically colored a hot blue — seems immediately at odds with the pristine wilderness.The musicical score, Dies Irae, is the name of the 13th century Gregorian chant re-envisioned by composers Wendy Carlos and Rachel Elkind for this title sequence. The modern take establishes a haunting atmosphere using sounds of a

synthesizer — a common trope in many horror films. The synth fades in and out periodically, allowing a Native American ritual hymn to enter. The shrill wail of sirens pierce the vast sky and add to the uncanny mood.

Like many of cinema’s most notable title sequences, the introduction to The Shining touches on themes later addressed in the film. For a celebrated and chronicled filmmaker such as Kubrick — known for his trenchant observations and perfectionism — myriad readings can be taken from viewing this opening. Jack Torrence’s ascent into the celestial Rocky Mountains is also a descent into the depths of his own personal hell; the lonely and strangely claustrophobic mountain road is the first of many labyrinthine constructs the film forces the Torrence family into. Here Kubrick introduces the viewer to an uncharacteristic form of horror: the domestic kind. When stripped of its supernatural elements, The Shining is an all too familiar tale of abuse, alienation, and paranoia.

75

1980S: COMPUTER AIDED DESIGN

TIMES SQUARE (1980)

Title Designer: Dan Perri Directed by: Allan Moyle

76

1980S: COMPUTER AIDED DESIGN

HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH (1982) Title Designer: John Wash Directed by: Tommy Lee Wallace

77

1980S: COMPUTER AIDED DESIGN

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (1984) Title Designer: Dan Perri Directed by: Wes Craven

BRAZIL (1985) Title Designer: Richard Morrison Directed by: Terry Gilliam

MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO (1988) Title Designer: Unknown Directed by: Hayao Miyazaki

78

1980S: COMPUTER AIDED DESIGN

WITHOUT A CLUE (1988) Title Designer: Penelope Gottlieb Directed by: Thom Eberhardt

AKIRA (1988) Title Designer: Unknown Directed by: Katsuhiro Otomo

TETSUO (1989) Title Designer: Unknown Directed by: Shin’ya Tsukamoto

79

DO THE

RIGHT THING (1989)

80

Title Designer: Balsmeyer & Everett Inc. Directed by: Spike Lee For moviegoers who weren’t familiar with Rosie Perez and Soul Train, the West Coast dance show, Spike Lee’s opening sequence provided a good, long look at her ferocity. After all, she was the one who introduced the show to that sort of brazen East Coast style of hip-hop dancing. In her militant moves and jabbing fists, she is dynamite incarnate.

The opening kicks off with Branford Marsalis’s rendition of James Weldon Johnson’s “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” originally a poem from 1900 which eventually came to be adopted as an anthem for the NAACP. The clip of the song is brief and it fades away as the screen goes black — a small nod to film overtures of old. The title sequence then slides in with the opening bars of “Fight the Power,” introducing audiences to Perez and the sounds of Public Enemy. An assertive Long Island rap group making great waves in hip-hop, their second studio album ‘It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back’ was one of 1988’s most critically acclaimed. Lee became a fan of its second track “Bring the Noise” and wanted Public Enemy to write and record an anthemic original track for his movie along those lines.

Like ‘It Takes a Nation’, Do the Right Thing’s intention was to voice the frustrations of a myriad of marginalized people facing police brutality, gentrification, and racism. The resulting theme, “Fight the Power,” was the perfect opener for the provocative subject matter Lee tackled head-on.

The shoot for Do The Right Thing’s opening took place on a soundstage which had a concrete floor, and Lee insisted on numerous takes, encouraging Perez to continuously bring more intensity. Her back went out, she injured her knees.

By the time they wrapped, she was using crutches. But this was Perez’s most important contribution and Lee’s greatest achievement: translating frustration and anger into fierce physicality and forcing viewers to pause, to feel that heat. Her dance helped the opening become both a turning point for hip-hop in film and a triumph of title design. The raw emotion established in the opening titles courses throughout the film, rousing audiences, igniting controversy, and raising questions about race and social structure — many of which, sadly, still resonate today.

81

1990s: The Decade of Grunge The 1990s was the decade of grunge and the style was seen in the music scene, fashion industry and design world. This was also the decade where Adobe Photoshop changed the face of graphic design. Photo manipulation created a whole new subcategory of graphic design, blending together elements of photography, illustration, and CGI. Simultaneously, the nature of branding also evolved to meet the changing times.

We partially have MTV to thank for this—they brought a fresh new take on logo usage, particularly in constantly changing theirs while retaining recognizable characteristics. This also introduced a whole world of title design for television as they continuously brought new and changing styles to their logo designs.

Every sphere of contemporary life — and especially the film business — had been affected by computers by this time. For designers, creating film titles meant participating in the apprenticeship tradition — learning by doing, on the job; that continued unabated into the mid-1990s. At that time, dynamic openers by Kyle Cooper and others showed what the next generation of design-educated, film-literate, tech-savvy creatives could do. That apprenticeship tradition has largely been overshadowed by the rise of popular technology, the Internet-enabled archiving of everything and the plethora of schools that propagate countless design disciplines. Most significantly, we see designers working like filmmakers and filmmakers working like designers.

82

83

ALADDIN (1992) Title Designer: Buena Vista Opticals Directed by: Ron Clements, John Musker

CASINO (1995) Title Designer: Saul Bass, Elaine Bass Directed by: Martin Scorsese

84

1990S: THE DECADE OF GRUNGE

GHOST IN THE SHELL (1996) Title Designer: Unknown Directed by: Mamoru Oshii A classic upon its release, the title sequence to Ghost in the Shell is a curious mix of 8-bit type animation, then-hi-tech CGI, all set to composer Kenji Kawai’s intimidating, minimalist score. It follows the construction of a cyborg from the inside out, first embracing a cold, tech-heavy aesthetic as the robot’s inner-core is assembled, feathering into softer imagery and warmer colors as the cyborg takes on a more human form, soon emerging as a young woman.

85

SE7EN

(1995)

86

Title Designer: Kyle Cooper Directed by: David Fincher David Fincher’s Se7en is a film that defies easy categorization. Perhaps too dark to qualify as a golden classic despite having all the right ingredients, neither is it a cult film in the traditional sense, as it is stocked with A-list talent and propped up by a smart script, a memorable score and rich cinematography, and a production value in lockstep with Fincher’s vision for the film.

This sentiment was not only reflected in the content of the sequence, but also in its assembly. Even though digital editing and compositing were already commonplace in Hollywood and especially in post-production, Cooper and his team opted to assemble the majority of the sequence by hand, giving it an analog warmth and randomness which may have otherwise been cheapened by digital effects.

What ultimately distinguishes Se7en is its delivery, piecing together bits of leader and other film artifacts with ephemeral imagery and type etched right into the emulsion, all sewn together by Angus Wall’s staccato edit and Coil/ Danny Hide’s nail-on-chalkboard remix of Trent Reznor’s industrial hit “Closer.” It’s an effortless presentation which — much like the killer’s diary featured within — wears its construction proudly on its sleeve. The typography itself — which would likely break several guild legibility rules in modern times — was hand-etched into black-surface scratchboard and manipulated during the film transfer process to further smear and jitter it. This transfer was then cut up and reassembled during post production to add a final layer of temporal distress.

It is ironic, then, that the Se7en titles are often credited as the beginning of a new renaissance in title design defined in large part by — or at least enabled by — pixels and digits.

And even more so given that its impact on the title industry is still felt almost two decades on, both as a legacy and in the countless knock-offs it has inspired over the years, having been co-opted almost wholesale by the horror genre as a house style.

87

FARGO (1996) Title Designer:Randall Balsmeyer, Mimi Everett Directed by: Joel and Ethan Coen Director of Photography Roger Deakins, from the DVD audio commentary track: “We had to wait weeks and weeks before we got our first snowfall and the day it really snowed we were actually shooting on the 14th floor of a tower block — a different sequence — so I sent out my assistant to shoot this shot with the transport guys, and off they went. We had scouted the locations and we knew exactly the camera angles so off he went and shot this really lovely material. But neither Joel or Ethan or myself were actually there.

It was one of the least snowy winters on record I believe, in Minnesota, so a lot of the snow that you see in the rest of the film is actually created with an ice chipping machine. But this was for real. Just love the music.

These shots, we stood there in these empty fields when we scouted and there was no snow or anything. And we just marked spots on the ground where the camera was and what lens we were going to shoot on because we knew when we actually got to shoot it we wouldn’t have much time.”

88

1990S: THE DECADE OF GRUNGE

TRAINSPOTTING (1996) Title Designer: Tomato Production Studios Directed by: Danny Boyle Set in the late 1980s, Trainspotting takes place in a time when Scotland was caught in a vice grip of high unemployment and a so-called “heroin epidemic” which nearly led to a national outbreak of HIV/AIDS. Prominent anti-drug messaging appeared in memorable advertising campaigns like “Heroin Screws You Up”, devised by Sammy Harari, then director of the advertising agency Yellowhammer.

Trainspotting crystallized this look, boiling down the residue of these campaigns along with music video influences and hints of the surreal. For the design elements of Trainspotting, Dylan Kendle and Jason Kedgley of multidisciplinary collective Tomato generated grimy titles and burned out images of the cast, matching the film’s filthy yet minimal aesthetic while drawing on influences including Sam Peckinpah and the Vorticist movement.

JACKIE BROWN (1997) Title Designer: Pacific Title and Art Studio Directed by: Quentin Tarantino

89

BOOGIE NIGHTS (1997) Title Designer: Unknown Directed by: Paul Thomas Anderson

RUN LOLA RUN (1999) Title Designer: Gil Alkabetz (Art Direction) Directed by: Tom Tykwer

90

1990S: THE DECADE OF GRUNGE

THE VIRGIN SUICIDES (1999)

Title Designer: Geoff McFetridge Directed by: Sofia Coppola

91

2000s: Integration of the Card and Narrative By the 2000s, title cards became more integrated with the film and identify with many components of the narrative work. They are simultaneously setting the mood and establishing the stage for the story that the viewer is about to see.

With the use of multiple digital programs such as Adobe After Effects and the multidisciplinary methods that can be applied to to design, title cards really began to show new techniques and new visions for what the future of title cards and sequences could look like.

This decade also starts to look back and pay homage to many influential title cards before it, for instance 2008’s Quantum of Solace and 2005’s Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. In Quantum of Solace, we see influence from Maurice Binder and her work with Dr.No back in 1962 while the designers for Kiss Kiss Bang Bang looked to Saul Bass’s style for inspiration.

92

93

AMERICAN

PSYCHO (2000)

94

Title Designer: Marlene McCarty Directed by: Mary Harron In the opening moments of American Psycho (2000), Director Mary Harron presents a perfect amuse-bouche for the satirical horror to come.

The controversial adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’s novel of the same name opens with bloody drops falling in elegant slow motion in a stark white vacuum. An uncomfortable hum lingers while they fall, each red drop punctuated by a sharp trill of violins. The tone is elegant and sleek, the pacing slow and ominous. When Harron’s credit appears, the music quickens, the blood spattering over a pristine white surface.

The title appears, the squat letters tracked wide across the space. The red keeps coming, now in rivulets, snaking itself across the void. A knife, raised high, gleams silver in the light — a nod to Hitchcock, of course — and hacks into a hunk of meat, turning notions of murder and violence into something ordinary — a culinary gesture. Plump raspberries bounce onto an exquisitely plated dish of late ’80s-era nouvelle cuisine. This ballet of blood and visual trickery is our entry into American Psycho, its sense of humour and its commentary: sharp and cutting, viciously playful, and all a matter of taste.

95

MONSTERS

INC. (2001)

96

Title Designer: Pixar Animation Studios, Geefwee Boedoe Directed by: Pete Docter, David Silverman, Lee Unkrich The gateway between a parallel universe of colourful characters and the human world is a simple door in the film Monsters Inc. It’s this idea of the door that is the main subject of Title Designer Geefwee Boedoe’s vibrant and graphic opening sequence to the 2001 film. Shapes bounce and dance in a black void, coming together to form a door, which opens on a closet, and then opens again to reveal a roaring, gaping cartoon mouth. What follows is a ballet of doors, stacking themselves into patterns and spitting out hand-hewn credits, squamous arms and slithering snakes, all set to the jolly and upbeat theme by composer Randy Newman.

comedy. The sequence is charming and organic, the cut-out shapes and hand-drawn lettering bearing an imperfection that is inviting and accessible. It also appears directly after a dark and sinister opening scene, so it not only sets up the proper tone for the film but it dispels any discomfort that young viewers might be experiencing, reinforcing that it is indeed a comedy.

The sequence is reminiscent of classic 2D animated openings for live-action comedies of the 1950s and 1960s like DePatie-Freleng’s work for The Pink Panther (1963) and A Shot in the Dark (1964) or Saul Bass’s work for Around The World in Eighty Days (1956) and It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963). Boedoe takes that mid-century graphic approach — normally used to open live-action films — and applies it to Monsters, Inc., a slick, computer-animated

97

CATCH ME IF YOU CAN (2002) Title Designer: Olivier Kuntzel, Florence Deygas Directed by: Steven Spielberg

ELF (2003) Title Designer: The Chiodo Bros.

Directed by: Jon Favreau

98

2000S: INTEGRATION OF THE CARD AND NARRATIVE

NAPOLEON DYNAMITE (2004) Title Designer: Jared Hess, Pablo Ferro (Additional Lettering) Directed by: Jared Hess

99

KISS KISS BANG BANG (2005) Title Designer: Prologue Films, Danny Yount Directed by: Shane Black

100

2000S: INTEGRATION OF THE CARD AND NARRATIVE

CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY (2005) Title Designer: Robert Dawson Directed by: Tim Burton

101

JUNO

(2007)

102

Title Designer: Gareth Smith, Jenny Lee Directed by: Jason Reitman The title designer, Gareth Smith describes the process in an interview with Art of the Title mentioning: “I had wanted to experiment with Xerox-copied cut-out animation prior to working on Juno, and this seemed like the perfect time to explore the technique. The idea was elaborate and incorporated live-action, stop-motion, along with illustration.

At the very end of the film shoot, we were able to spend a few hours working with Ellen Page to get the shots we needed to assemble the sequence. We shot on two cameras: a Panasonic HVX200 and a Canon DSLR. This was before video was available on the DSLR, so we were actually shooting using the burst mode at around 8 frames per second. Each frame of her in the sequence was created using the following process: 1.The frame was printed on an Epson inkjet printer, in black and white, onto heavy weight matte paper

Juno onto the print 3.The frame was Xeroxed 4.Then it was Xeroxed again for that extra degraded look 5 The double-Xeroxed frame was then hand-colored with color pencils 6.Finally, the colored image was cut out with scissors Each frame was scanned on a flatbed scanner and then stabilized in Adobe After Effects. “ As for the text and illustrations, they were all done by Jenny Lee. The text Jenny drew for the sequence is her version of that text from her high school notebooks. To create the animated look for the title cards, Jenny traced each title four times to produce a typographic loop. The illustrations are all based off location photographs in Vancouver, Canada.

2.Using a ballpoint pen, we drew the black outline around

103

QUANTUM OF SOLACE (2008) Title Designer: MK12: Ben Radatz, James Ramirez Directed by: Marc Forster Ben Radatz of MK12 mentions in an interview with Art of the Title: “Preserving the tradition of the sequence was really important to us, and somewhat counterintuitively we chose to work with a lot of the pre-established tropes, particularly from the earlier years. This is most evident in our type design, which was inspired

by Maurice Binder’s famous stop-frame dots in his Dr. No sequence, but it also informed our use of color, tone, and rhythm. We did this both as an homage and as a continuation — a contribution to the larger coloring book, I suppose. Of course we wanted to add our signature to the franchise, and we had a lot of encouragement from Marc and the producers to do so.”

104

2000S: INTEGRATION OF THE CARD AND NARRATIVE

PARAISO TRAVEL (2009)

Title Designer: Hush Production Studio Directed by: Simon Brand

105

2010s: The Modern Age In the modern age, a wide variety of techniques and applications are available for title card designers to create opening sequences that capture the attention of the viewer. Looking at modern title cards, we are able to see a variety of new techniques such as fractal frames that create a spark like appearance to the screen.

A majority of new title cards are influenced by those before it and are now being given custom typefaces not only to the card but to the design of the overall film. There are ranges of typographic elements being used along with different categories of type that are now being integrated. For example, we see the reappearance of blackletter that was used in silent film title cards, but the category is now used to align with horror or religious settings.

106

107

2010S: THE MODERN AGE

WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS(2014) Title Designer: Unknown Directed by: Taika Waititi, Jemaine Clement

THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL (2014) Title Designer: Annie Atkins Directed by: Wes Anderson

LADY BIRD (2017) Title Designer: Leanne Shapton, Teddy Blanks Directed by: Greta Gerwig

108

2010S: THE MODERN AGE

CALL ME BY YOUR NAME (2017)

Title Designer: Chen Li Directed by: Luca Guadagnino

109

ANNIHILATION

(2018)

110

Title Designer: Matt Curtis Directed by: Alex Garland Title designer Matt Curtis had a very specific look and feel he was after to best visualise the beauty of mathematical chaos and “The Shimmer”. This was done solely using fractal frames.

As for the typography, Alex Garland wanted it to almost not be there, barely visible in the chaos. This perfectly emulates the pyschological, physical, and mental strain that the characters face while entering this atmosphere in this sci-fi thriller. The bright and almost neon color exhibited align closely with certain aspects of what is seen in “The Shimmer” and tie in with the literal gaze that is casted over the this environment in the film.

111

SPIDER MAN INTO

SPIDERVERSE (2018)

112

Title Designer: Alma Mater Studio: Brian Mah, James Ramirez Directed by: Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman For not only the title sequence but the entire movie, filmmakers looked to the hand-drawn techniques of comics artist and Miles Morales co-creator Sara Pichelli. Combining Sony’s computer animation with Pichelli’s vibrant traditional style proved to be key to Spider-Verse’s vivacious, one-of-a-kind aesthetic. To achieve it, the film required 140 animators — at one point ballooning to reach 177 members — the largest crew that Sony Pictures Imageworks had ever used in film.

Its slam-dunk closing title sequence, which won the 2019 Excellence in Title Design Award at SXSW, and required a team of about a dozen people. The main-on-end sequence is a zipline through a kaleidoscopic vortex of blazing colour, invigorating energy, industry in-jokes, and meta-Spideys, all doused in Kirby dots and halftones, graffiti and street slaps. Like the psychedelic Dondi White–Roy Lichtenstein team-up we never knew we were missing. It was created by Alma Mater, the studio behind the titles of 21 Jump Street and The Lego Movie.

Tackling the “inspirational and intimidating” brief required heavy lifting from creative directors Brian Mah and James Ramirez, VFX specialists, an editor, an illustrator, and a gaggle of animators and compositors.

113

THE FAVOURITE (2018) Title Designer: Vasilis Marmatakis Directed by: Yorgos Lanthimos

PARASITE (2019) Title Designer: Unknown Directed by: Bong Joon Ho

114

2010S: THE MODERN AGE

1917 (2019)

Title Designer: Unknown Directed by: Sam Mendes

115

KNIVES

OUT (2019)

116

Title Designer: The Made Shop, Zachary Johnson Directed by: Rian Johnson The type treatment in Rian Johnson’s Knives Out is inspired by Agatha Christie’s classic mystery novels.This was the directors intent, and to honor to the legendary writer, The Made Shop created a custom typographic homage to these novels complete with sinister serifs and devilish details. The sequence shown here includes a swirling set of knives surrounding the main typography while not being shy about having it be the center of attention. As for the end title cards, they collaborated with illustrator Zachary Johnson to illustrate each character as if they were each characters in a “Clue” board game.

117

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I’d like to give thanks to the gorgeous online collection, “Art of the Title”. All of the body text describing the titles come from this online catalog of title cards and sequences. Through their website I was able to find high quality images of cards, especially ones coming from the silent era and onward. Thank you to all the writers at “Art of the Title” for interviewing the designers and gaining information on the development and process of making the sequences.

I’d also like to thank Rebecca Gross at Canva for her article on the history of title design as this informed my opening spreads for each decade. Her in depth research helped me inform the readers on what each decade looked like in the area of film and design. Along with this, she also provided some amazing examples of title designs and highlighted influential designers throughout the years that impacted not only the world of title cards, but graphic design as well.

Lastly, I want to use this opportunity to thank some of the legendary designers of the field as this book would not have been complete or the same without them. Most notably, Saul Bass as he truly pioneered and reinvisioned the field, setting an example for those to come. Along with this, Maurice Binder, Dan Perri, and Kyle Cooper. Lastly, Matt Curtis, Robert Dawson, John Wash, Hans Driere, The Made Shop, and Zachary Johnson for creating some of my favorites.

118

AFTERWORD This catalog was designed at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln for GRPH324: Publication Design. This project begun with smaller iterations of page layouts and multiple catalog ideas.

I ended on choosing to center my catalog around title cards purely because it displays three of my favorite things: typography, graphic design, and cinema. Along with this, I was able to look into not only the history of title card design but film as well which was an amazing addition to the project as a whole.

I also wanted to use the afterword to explain the cover design as it guided my design ideation from the beginning. The sketches exhibited on the front are Saul Bass’s sketches for the 1959 film ‘Walk on the Wild Side’. This led my design as I wanted to recreate the sketch-y feeling by pulling some favorites to be exhibited on the decade spreads and reinvisioning them to look like the final sketches from the designers. By doing this, I was able to show that every title card a viewer sees goes through multiple iterations and is thought of intensly in order to communicate the feeling of the film. Heart and passion go into each and every title card you see and it’s amazing to see the process. All the reproduced sketches from the decade pages can be found on the front end and back end sheets.

119

120

121

122