Before Saul and Elaine started collaborating, they worked independently, which is why it is important to look into the history of each of them individually before analysing their mutual creations.
Up until 1955, Saul Bass, who was a a well-known filmmaker and graphic designer, worked alone. He achieved great heights, as he collaborated with such individuals like Stanley Kubrick, Billy Wilder and Alfred Hitchcock, who were all the greatest Hollywood filmmakers of the time. Saul became famous in the film industry after designing and developing the title sequence for "The Man with the Golden Arm". Moreover, he invented kinetic typography, which is an animation technique, that involves moving text and quite frequently an accompanying speech. Apart from the title sequences, Saul specialised on creating logos for large companies in the US. For instance, he designed the logos for Continental Airlines in 1968 and for United Airlines in 1974.
Talking about Elaine Bass, she wasn't particularly well-known before meeting her husband (and the future working partner) Saul Bass. However, since early childhood she expressed passion towards drawing and signing, which later surprisingly brought her to working in a fashion industry in New York (she worked in the design department).
Moving on to 1955, the two talented souls collided:) As Elaine became an assistant to Saul (the main graphic title designer), they started developing more and more works together. Elaine herself directed the opening title sequence to "Spartacus" in 1960 and not long after this event, the two got married. Up till 1966 they managed to collaborate in the production of a wide variety of title sequences, including "Walk on the Wild Side", "Grand Prix", 'The Victors" and many more. The pair stopped working for a while when they had children, however in 1968 already they developed a short film "Why Man Creates", which actually brought them an Oscar. After an approximately 10 year gap, Saul and Elaine Bass returned to title design and created sequences for "The War of the Roses", "Higher Learning", "The Age of Innocence" and "Casino", which turned out to be their very last collaboration. Saul Bass passed away in 1996 and Elaine worked on her last opening titles in 1998, which aimed to update the old version of "Psycho".
This is a video, exploring the style of Bass's titles and the impact they made on the film industry:
Pt.2: Analysing an opening title sequence created by Saul and Elaine Bass
I particularly enjoyed watching the opening title sequence to the film "Seconds" (1966), as it is one of the most unconventional yet eye-catching sequences I've seen. I didn't watch this movie, however I read the plot summary in order to obtain a rough idea of what the film is about.
From what I researched "Seconds" is a story about a miserable middle-aged man, who decides to undergo a complex procedure of changing his identity completely (he not only gets surgery to change the way he looks, but also fakes his death and starts his life as a different person).
This opening title sequence is an example of a minimalistic piece of work, which still creates a great impact on the viewers and undoubtedly sets the most significant themes of the movie. The whole black-and-white sequence consists of close-ups and ECUs on the distorted parts of a male's face, that merge together and transition to one another. The footage flows smoothly and slowly, which makes the sequence continuous. The titles themselves are simplistic (the font is not unique), yet perfectly suitable for the scene. The fact that they are relatively big in the ratio to the frame makes the viewers pay attention to them as well as the fact that they are white makes them stand out against the grey-black background. They slowly fade in and out of the screen, not disrupting the pace of the videos at the background. From what I've described so far the titles might seem average, however it is the art of incorporating them into the narrative that makes the whole sequence so unconventionally beautiful.
The title of the movie fades in (written in caps) along with the background close-up zoom-in shot on the mouth of a person. As the camera moves closer, the name of the movie "Seconds" is almost "eaten" by the opened mouth, which might suggest the main character didn't value the concept of time, when searching for a "better alternative" and changing his identity.
Furthermore, one set of titles (numerous names) are shown when the camera "enters the ear" and as it "exits from another ear" just one title line is revealed. This motion might also suggest the audience that the main character tended to interpret all information in a wrong way and distort/misunderstand certain things in his life.
I also noticed that the titles, including multiple lines (not just one word/name) appear alongside the images that seem to be doubled or tripled. For example, as it cane be seen in the picture on the left there are "multiple mouths" appearing on screen. This way the titles match the style of the image and both components accompany each other.
Lastly, Saul and Eline clearly thought about the layout of the titles precisely. As it can be seen in the screenshot on the right, a column of titles appears in the darkest pat of the screen - the shadow underneath the man's chin. This sort of layout doesn't disrupt the viewers' perception of the images/videos themselves, but allows them to pay close attention to the background and the titles separately.
Overall, observing the close-ups shots on the disturbed eyes, dark ears and nostrils undoubtedly makes the audience feel uncomfortable and tense. The titles seem to be adding on to the video sequence, matching its style and possibly creating metaphors, related to the movie. This opening title sequence makes it clear the film will be a psychological thriller, maybe even a horror, which leaves the audience nervous and disturbed.
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