IDD 400 - Advanced Motion Graphics

Welcome back to another semester of stunning analysis of motion graphics. The book for this semester is Motion Graphic Design & Fine Art Animation by Jon Krasner. This book starts off with a brief overview of the history of animation and what some of the first inventions were to view moving pictures. During the first chapter it talks about different key people in the history of animation and motion graphics. It then comes to Saul Bass who revolutionized the way that credits and title sequences were done.

One film that stands out in particular to me is "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" done in 1963. Saul Bass did the title sequence for this film as well and lasted about four minutes. The color palette consisted of black, white, and shades of red. The background is red and is Ultra Panavision and makes full use of its width. The music in the background was a very light and comical type of melody that suits this movie well. The entire sequence was done in a very simple illustrated animation. The text often times plays an active role in the sequence moving around with the character and reacting to it. This sequence also seems to touch on almost all of the basic comedic routines, such as people falling, getting trampled over, getting stuck in places, etc. The end of it fades into a car speeding down the road which is the opening sequence to the feature film. Overall, there are some things in the title sequence that only relate to the film in the sense that they are comedic and that is the nature of this film.