Saul Bass

"Saul Bass & Title Design"

The Saul Bass design for Alfred Hitchcock's movie "The Birds" is a very simplistic and stylized design but is very bold with the colors used along with the informational background for "The Birds".  The way that the feather outline somewhat 'surrounds' the actual movie information reminds me of how 'The Birds' in the movie, surround the actual lives of the people in the movie. I feel that the use of the red-orange overlay with the white feather works well.


"Art of the Title"

For this I reviewed many opening credits for many movies and have chosen,

There are two versions with this particular title/theme. 

The original one being the 1965 television version which was written by Michael Garrison as somewhat of a James Bond on horseback for the television audience who at the time were geared towards western themes and spy themes.

The 1999 movie was based on the original "Wild Wild West" version
by Michael Garrison.

The base line for both was that the main characters are two
U.S. Secret Service agents, operating during the late 1860's.

Captain James or Jim West
(portrayed by Robert Conrad in 1965 and Will Smith in 1999)

and his sidekick Artemus Gordon
(portrayed by Ross Martin in 1965 and Kevin Kline in 1999) 

The 1965 television version of the "Wild Wild West" premiered on
September 17th, 1965.

The first season of the 1965 television version was in black and white.

With the second season being produced in color.

The opening credits of the 1999 version (like that of the 1965 television version) of the "Wild Wild West" worked with geometric designs that encapsulated particular scenes within the movie or emotions that the viewer could expect to see during the actual movie.

The title design for the television versions were created by Ken Mundie.

With the opening title itself and the "actor credits/names" being hand drawn.
With the sequences were animation and cel animations that incorporated basic sketches with a more cartoon drawn characters contained within rectangular shapes, and in some sequences the images would go-between the rectangles.

This was created with a minimal color palate and was set to the music score by Richard Markowitz.

The title design for the 1999 version was created by Kyle Cooper and set to a more upbeat version of Richard Markowitz's theme song which was revamped by composer/conductor Elmer Bernstein.  The 1999 version's music is more of the old west sound meets "steampunk" which flows well with the style of animation, live action title design that Kyle Cooper designed.  Mr. Cooper combined a more modernistic flare with the different montages he uses along with the split screen images and his typographic choices for the actual text.

I feel that both versions worked well especially working with the elements of
“the day” that filmmakers had available to them.  

With the later version, by Mr. Cooper, tapping into a whole new audience as some viewers weren’t alive when then TV series was on, the title design seemed new and exciting, but he was basically paying tribute to the original concept but putting his own spin on the geometric designs and the use of modern graphic technology to make the audience intrigued by what they saw.

As Mr. Cooper’s version, keeping homage to the earlier version by incorporating somewhat the basic outlined panel design (like Mr. Mundie’s version), but putting his own twist on it, modernizing it by adding circle elements and also flipping the rectangles on their sides, moving it in and out, or side to side (like the shutter on a camera lens) to incorporate the live action shots from the movie itself. 

Using the CG advancements of modern technology the possibilities were pretty much limitless unlike the previous 1965 version.

http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/the-wild-wild-west/

http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/wild-wild-west/