Cool Animated Titles

If you are a fan of animated opening titles, as I am, you’ll want to take note of these three items:

• A special tribute to Bob Kurtz is being featured on the Forget the Film, Watch the Titles website. Kurtz has done a number of distinctive animated film titles, mostly in cooperation with top title designers. So far the site has posted seven: City Slickers, Max Dugan Returns, Are We Done Yet?, The Pink Panther, Straight Talk, Honey I Blew Up The Kid and Four Rooms – and more to come. Kurtz himself contributes comments on every sequence posted.

• Here’s a new animated film title you really should see. It’s a remarkable piece, heavily inspired by the work by Oskar Fischinger, created by Paris based design studio Deubal, for the recently released French film Ça Se Soigne?. Comments by the title’s designer, Olivier Marquezy, also appear on the Submarine Channel site.

• And finally, an incredible oversized 320 page book which surveys the history of movie title design has just been released by BIS Publishers. Uncredited: Graphic Design & Opening Titles in Movies sheds insight into the work of dozens of title designers, including such artists as Saul Bass, Pablo Ferro, Maurice Binder and Milton Glaser. It retails for $55, but Amazon has it for $34.65. Highly recommended.