Somewhere along the line a convention developed that the opening of a film was just a laundry list of credits. There was no incentive to complicate an area that was settled.
Saul BassRead
My work on titles was a marvelous opportunity to learn about filmmaking. I think I touched on just about every aspect of the process, both creative and technical. And I worked with many wonderful people.
Interpretation
Saul Bass reflects on his experiences in filmmaking, highlighting the importance of learning and collaboration.
In this quote, Saul Bass expresses gratitude for the learning opportunities he encountered while working on film titles. He emphasizes the multifaceted nature of filmmaking, which encompasses both creative and technical elements, and acknowledges the valuable relationships he formed with others in the industry.
In practice
During a film industry seminar to highlight the importance of learning from experience.
Somewhere along the line a convention developed that the opening of a film was just a laundry list of credits. There was no incentive to complicate an area that was settled.
In the course of our daily lives, we're bombarded with a barrage of visual messages, some blatantly aggressive, some subtle. The trick is to find a way to break through without adding to the clutter and the ugliness. We have to be responsible about that.
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.
I want to make beautiful things, even if nobody cares.
Logos are a graphic extension of the internal realities of a company.
When I provided the disembodied arm as the logo for 'The Man With the Golden Arm,' it was the first time an advertising-publicity campaign was based on a single symbol. Until then film companies used a variety of symbols and photographs to cover all bets. The concept of using one logo was mine and Otto Preminger's.
In my limited experience, shows are like children. You can teach them manners and dress them in little sailor suits, but in the end, they're going to be who they're going to be.
The thing that I love most about being on stage is making people happy...It's my job to do that, and I enjoy it.
This making studies and then taking them home to use them is only half right. You get composition, but you lose freshness; you miss the subtle and, to the artist, the finer characteristics of the scene itself.
I want to make films without a single clear message, and films that are as close as possible to what it feels like to be alive. At least to me.
I think that if we really want to break it down, that non-black filmmakers have had many, many years and many, many opportunities to tell many, many stories about themselves, and black filmmakers have not had as many years, as many opportunities, as many films to explore the nuances of our reality.
What a great poem teaches you - and it's not intellectual at all - is the resonance in the language that's heard there. This goes back to the very origins of poetry and to the very origins of language.
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