Saul Bass

Vertigo
Vertigo starts off with a close-up on a woman's face, first at her lips and then the camera travels to her eyes. Her eyes twitch from side to side and seem to be watering, which i believe creates an image of fear from the woman, which gets us thinking immediately why she feels this way.
The Camera seems to loose itself in the woman's eyes, the use of close-ups as well, shows off the woman's beauty immediately. These close-ups remain under a dark light, creating a negative and sinister feeling.
The woman's eyes suddenly strech wider, as the screen turns red, this paints a very negative image as red is the colour of blood and death. The title comes out from the woman's eyes, I believe Saul Bass wanted to exaggerate the inner emotion behind a person's eyes that cannot be expressed into words, as the graphics that follow, also come out of the eye and are kaleidoscopic shapes in many colours, that represent the eye's shape.
The credits also appear slowly beside these kaleidoscopic shapes, i believe to create atmosphere and anticipation. Also the music used in the title sequence is intresting, he has used slow, dramatic music which contains a lot of crecendos and repetative trills, this again helps to portray the sinister mood put across from the graphics and imagery.


Analysis of Psycho
The opening to Psycho contains no imagery or use of camera as Saul Bass has just decided to use horizontal and vertical lines to accompany the title sequence. These horizontal and vertical lines appear in time with the music which is much more disharmonious compared to Vertigos soundtrack, the music also contains an ostinati of staccato notes, to create a tense atmosphere.

The font throughtout the title sequence doesn't change, and there is no colour. The vertical and horizontal lines used join together to create the title "Psycho" and to show the other credits, I believe this is a very good technique because an idea so simple, has made a very clear and negative atmopshere. I felt like I have learnt alot from these title sequences and it has given me a few ideas to discuss with my group about how we will start our own short film opening.

Saul Bass' work again, has made me learn that is not all about the immediate effect of the imagery, and that the most simple ideas can be the most effective.