Wednesday, 9 December 2009

Motion graphics and title sequencing

I will be looking at how motion graphics and title sequencing has developed over the years and what impact they have had on the digital and entertainment world.


Motion graphics is usually a short piece of work that conveys a message mixed with graphical elements , this can be achieved by mixing various elements such as 2D and 3D animation, video, film, typography , illustration, photography and music. Motion graphics are usually used for title sequences, animated logos and more recently commercials.
It's hard to pinpoint when motion graphics began. In the early 20th century Viking Eggeling, Oskar Fischinger and Len Lye were experimenting with films that have some resemblance to motion graphics.

Eggeling was born in Sweden to a family of german origin, at 17 became a bookkeeper and studied history as well as painting. From 1911 to 1915 he lived in Paris, then moved to Switzerland and in Zurich he became associated with the Dada movement and became friends with Hans Richter, Jean Arp and Marcel Janco. At the end of the war Eggeling and Ritcher moved to Germany where they experimented with the depiction of movement, first with scroll drawing then on film. In 1922 Eggeling bought a motion camera and tried to create a new type of cinema. In 1923 he worked with paper cut-outs and then tin foil and photographed them frame by frame which was called Symphonie Diagonale.
Link to Symphonie Diagonale - www.ubu.com/film/eggeling.html.

Oskar Fischinger chose music as a career, however he was to young and unhealthy to for war duty and was forced to learn architectural drafting and tool design. In 1921 he was so amazed by Walther Ruttmann's Light-play Opus No.1 (which is a colour abstract film with a live musical score) he vowed to devote himself to cinema and combine his musical and graphical skills.
In the early 1920's his first films were his most radical, a lot of Fischinger's work are abstract as he liked to experiment with shapes.


Len Lye born in New Zealand (1901 - 1980) was best known for his experimental films.

As a student a teacher of his put him onto the idea of creating his own art theory where he had the idea of composing motion. Having this revelation as a young man he was able to develop himself as an artist further working with film, paintings, drawings, writings and sculpture.

He made his first animated film in 1929 called Tusalava about "the beginnings of organic life" which was created by camera animation and it's imagery drew influences from Maori, Aboriginal and modernist arts.


Tusalava can be seen at - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flJOXMln4C0


Saul Bass (1920 - 1980) was an American graphic designer and an award winning filmmaker but is better known for his title sequences. He has been credited many of times for helping title sequencing growth. Throughout his time working through various avenues he worked with many great filmmakers such as Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick and Martin Scorsese. One of Bass's most famous titles were from the movie the man with the golden arm where the movie is about a junkie, so Bass animated a paper cut out of an heroin addicts arm instead of using Frank Sinatra's face which helped to reinvent title sequencing.


Another one of Bass's famous sequences is From the movie Psycho where the text cuts across length ways and race together and apart the reveal the word Psycho. This film also played a big role in Bass's career as he claimed that he had helped Hitchcock in the direction of the shower scene however many onset claim that Bass had no influence on that scene but Bass claimed that he was asked to create storyboards for the shower scene that Hitchcock used.


In 1974, Bass made his only feature length film as a director, which is not well known but visually stunning called Phase IV.


To view The man with the Golden Arm - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGnpJ_KdqZE

Below is the address for a link to watch the Pyscho title sequence http://videolog.uol.com.br/swfs/player_externo.swf?id_video=233813


A quote from Saul Bass "My intitial 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 began, viewers should already have an emotional resonance with it"


"Design is thinking made visual"


A designer who has been credited for the resurgence title sequening is Kyle Cooper. Cooper specializes in creating title sequences for films, television and video games. In this field now Cooper is the go to man with over 150 titles to his name including Mission Impossible, Spiderman, Spawn, Twister to name the least however it was the titles he created for the movie Se7en that not only got him recognized but got the title sequence industry noticed. Se7en is about a serial killer who kills people in accordance to the 7 deadly sins (Pride, Envy, Gluttony, Lust, Anger, Greed, Sloth). In this sequence he used film, he also scratched over the original film and used handwritten font to give it a grunge feel.

After Se7en Cooper left R/Greenberg Associates where he had spent the last 7 years and founded Imaginary Forces which quickly became the best place to go to in Hollywood.


Whilst Imaginary Forces grew Cooper found himself working more on the managing side of things so he left Imaginary Forces in 2003 and set up his new company Prologue which only houses about ten designers.

A quote from Cooper "To be honest , the move was about me just wanting to do my own work, People stand in line waiting to ask you things. I prefer to execute my own ideas."


During my research i got in contact with Prologue to gather information on Kyle Cooper Links are below:

































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