Nicholas McLaughlin Blog

The Brief:

Initial Ideas:

As I have a week for this project I can’t spend as much time as I’d like researching the topic and influences and will just have to trust my gut on it. Initial thoughts is to do something very simple but still effective and as Gillian instructed focus more on the nuances.

Inspiration:

Lora Lamm

I’ve looked at the work of Lora Lamm, specifically her use of straightforward yet descriptive visuals. Her use of shape and colour creates a sense of fun and brightness around her work, which is shown below, and even though my goal is to be more severe and direct, what I am to take away from this is how Lamm does so much with so little and that less can be more than enough.

Saul Bass

In a number of Saul Bass’s work When looking at Saul Bass’s work, I was drawn to the apparent simplicity of shapes, colour, and movement and how he uses such simple elements to elicit the overarching emotional reaction the movie is about to achieve. He sets the film’s tone with simple components and speaks with attention given to the movement or relationship between these components.In a number of Saul Bass’s work

North by Northwest (1959) :

The Man With The Golden Arm (1955) :

Psycho (1960):

Anatomy of a Murder (1959) :

Maurice Binder

With Maurice Binder’s title sequence in the 1958 movie ‘Damn Yankees, ‘ it was less the tone and emotion achieved but the use of movement, paying particular attention to the method used at 1:59 when the baseball is followed flying past the stand.

Damn Yankees (1958) :

Inspiration:

The News

As the brief states, the piece has to be for a news brodcast ‘Tonight’, so after establishing the style and time frame I wish to imitate, inspired mainly by the work of Saul Bass I took a look into the news broadcasts of the time.

The main iconography that stands out to me is that of the globe and the signals emitters. Another key element that I want to imitate from the original news broadcasts is the music, the large triumphant brass section to announce its presence.

From Early 60’s to Late 60’s:

At some point of actually creating my title sequence I realised that even though I was creating it with a style based of the early 1960’s, it was inspired from films and artistic pioneers of the early 60’s which didn’t trickle down to television and mainstream television until the mid to late 60’s/ early 70’s.

As this is a very quick project I wont have time to correct or delve deeper into my research but I think it’s important to note that with more time I’d love to look more into television from that era and nail the specific feel and nuances of television from that time.

The visuals I have in mind at this point makes me think of the energetic instrumentals by Werner Tautz.

So with the style of Saul Bass and the images of the globe and/or radio emitters and the music Werner Tautz, my final piece should be something inspired by the 1960’s but almost an exaggeration of it, the 1960’s news broadcast through the rose tinted glasses of nostalgia.

Inspiration:

Story Board :

Music Change:

David Rose & His Orchestra – Holiday For Strings (1955 Version)

In all honesty I can not remember why I went for David Rose – Holiday For Strings in stead of Werner Tautz – Derby Day they both seem to do the same job, Derby Day being a bit more energetic than Holiday for Strings. What I do know is that I removed Grand Central by Tautz because the the reason I loved it initially now doesn’t align with the pacing and steady feel of the final outcome. Again if revisiting this project then I might want to explore Derby Day further and create a title sequence closely tied to its tempo.

Final – Tonight1970:

https://videopress.com/v/atCI12oN?resizeToParent=true&cover=true&preloadContent=metadata&useAverageColor=true

With my final outcome I aimed to create a modern recreation of a 1970’s title sequence, the key elements of the design, tempo and nuances driven by our nostalgic recollection of that time period and the media that went along with it.

Reflection:

This was a quick project but looking back I appreciate that sometimes, the short sporadic nature of it means that you have to trust your gut and run with it and don’t have time to second guess yourself, some elements might have been improved with some rumination or delving deeper though.

If I was to spend longer in this project then I would have spent more time planning and narrowing down exactly what I wanted to achieve and exactly how I was going to do it, as well as perfecting some elements like movments and pacing and fixing others completely like the font.