Saul Bass

Saul Bass was an award winning American Graphic designer and an Oscar winning filmmaker. He started producing ad campaigns and and after lots of hard work he soon became known as the pioneer for modern title sequence designing. Elaine Bass (Saul bass' wife) worked for 40 years along side Saul as she was also an extremely talented graphic designer and filmmaker.

The reason for Saul Bass being so important was that he reimagined what the start of films are and showed audiences what was coming up in the films without showing too much of the plot. This changed the course of how films were produced forever, as it was giving a little teaser for the audience to get interested.

Over Saul's time in the film industry he worked some incredibly talented directors and people that he looked up to in his early years, for example, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, Otto Preminger, Billy Wilder, and Martin Scorsese.

Grand Prix (1966)

Grand Prix is an American sports drama film made in 1966, and directed by John Frankenheimer. It stars James Garner, Yves Montand, Brian Bedford, Antonio Sabàto, Toshiro Mifune and many more. It was in the top 10 of the highest-grossing films of 1966 and won three Academy Awards. 

The opening title sequence links with the films genre by adding tension throughout the whole scene. The joyful non diegetic soundtrack, played during the first few names shown, is instantly shattered by the F1 car engine sounds coming out of the exhaust of one of the cars.

The Font type that is shown in the exhaust, shows more seriousness and creates a more tone to the film. 

From all of the cars revving up and spectators getting ready shows the film is going to be about a car race. This adds a lot of tension. The transitions used are sharp and effective as they add to the more serious tone of the the film.