It’s been 13 years since I graduated from college and 8 years since I quit my last job to become a full-time freelance Photographer. But that wasn’t my aspiration from the beginning…
Before I became a Photographer, one of the things I wanted to do in life was to create “opening title” sequences for movies and tv shows. During my last year of college (as a Graphic Design major) I was already completely in love with movies and motion graphics, which I would later work with on my post-college jobs. My admiration for Opening Titles started when I was exposed to the work of the late Saul Bass, especially his collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock in Psycho, Vertigo, and the big-screen adaptation of West Side Story, by Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise. That, combined with all the possibilities that computers brought to the job in more recent years, got me fascinated with the idea of exploring this interesting art form. While I did work on a couple of small projects here and there, I (unfortunately) never took it seriously enough to turn that admiration into a profession.
But that didn’t stop me from enjoying and getting excited whenever I see something well designed and executed! If you have access to HBO, I’m assuming you are aware of their new take on Perry Mason? Even though period movies/tv-shows were never my favorite type of stories to follow, two things grabbed me on this new version: the gorgeous lighting throughout all the episodes, that a lot of times makes me question if I’m looking at one of Edward Hopper’s paintings and, equally interesting, the brief seconds where they display the title of the show, with a very classic and elegant font choice. For just a few seconds, the characters walk in front of the titles as if it was just another prop in the scene. It’s such a small detail that adds so much to the experience! Check out some examples here.
If you, just like me, appreciate this art form, you will probably enjoy getting lost within the incredible database that the Art of the Title has to offer. You can thank me later!