Theorists
WES CRAVEN
Wes Craven is an American horror director raised in cleveland Ohio Craven Craven went on to have numerous careers before eventually joining the film industry in the early 1970's . His work has become synonymous with some of the most classic icons of horror. With titles including "Scream", "A nightmare on elm street" and the 1980's revival of popular horror series 'the twilight zone' it's no surprise that Craven has been recognised as one of the worlds most influential masters of horror.
Craven's Work was as he said ; more effective when the moral society figures were removed or arrived just that moment too late. He believed that all good horrors were more believable when the victims were effectively stranded with "nowhere to hide" or where there is absence of parents or authority. Most of Craven's work was at its hight in the late 70's to mid 80's after his first motion picture 'Last house on the left' was released in 1972. Craven has also created some of the most icon horror villains of all time with the likes of 'Freddy Krueger' and Scream's 'Ghost Face' who's costume has become the most soled halloween costume since its release in 1996.
Wes Craven is an American horror director raised in cleveland Ohio Craven Craven went on to have numerous careers before eventually joining the film industry in the early 1970's . His work has become synonymous with some of the most classic icons of horror. With titles including "Scream", "A nightmare on elm street" and the 1980's revival of popular horror series 'the twilight zone' it's no surprise that Craven has been recognised as one of the worlds most influential masters of horror.
Craven's Work was as he said ; more effective when the moral society figures were removed or arrived just that moment too late. He believed that all good horrors were more believable when the victims were effectively stranded with "nowhere to hide" or where there is absence of parents or authority. Most of Craven's work was at its hight in the late 70's to mid 80's after his first motion picture 'Last house on the left' was released in 1972. Craven has also created some of the most icon horror villains of all time with the likes of 'Freddy Krueger' and Scream's 'Ghost Face' who's costume has become the most soled halloween costume since its release in 1996.
CAROL CLOVER
Carol Clover is an American professor of film studies, rhetoric language and Scandinavian mythology. She has been widely published in her area of expertise. Her book 'Men, Woman and Chainsaws:Gender in the modern horror film' achieved popularity and she is credited with developing the 'final girl' theory.
Carol Clover believes killers in horror films tend to either have issues with childhood or are sexually disturbed.
Clover also believes that murders occur in decaying and haunted mansions. The places are terrible not just because of their physical state but by the history of them. Walls in houses which at first seem safe by keeping the killer out soon become prisons holding the victim in. Often point of view shots are used as we watch the weapon penetrate into the safe surroundings of where the victim is hiding.
The victim used to be only one beautiful women being killed in horror movies, all victims of slashers are sexual transgressors. Even when males and females are killed in the same numbers, it is the death of the female that lingers in your mind. Clover writes that you will spot the final girl right from he start in slashers. She is not sexually active, she is intelligent, resourceful and watchful to the point of paranoia. She is boyish, even to the point of her name.
Carol Clover is an American professor of film studies, rhetoric language and Scandinavian mythology. She has been widely published in her area of expertise. Her book 'Men, Woman and Chainsaws:Gender in the modern horror film' achieved popularity and she is credited with developing the 'final girl' theory.
Carol Clover believes killers in horror films tend to either have issues with childhood or are sexually disturbed.
Clover also believes that murders occur in decaying and haunted mansions. The places are terrible not just because of their physical state but by the history of them. Walls in houses which at first seem safe by keeping the killer out soon become prisons holding the victim in. Often point of view shots are used as we watch the weapon penetrate into the safe surroundings of where the victim is hiding.
The victim used to be only one beautiful women being killed in horror movies, all victims of slashers are sexual transgressors. Even when males and females are killed in the same numbers, it is the death of the female that lingers in your mind. Clover writes that you will spot the final girl right from he start in slashers. She is not sexually active, she is intelligent, resourceful and watchful to the point of paranoia. She is boyish, even to the point of her name.
SAUL BASS
Saul Bass was born on May 8, 1920, in the Bronx, New York, United States, to Eastern European Jewish immigrant parents. He graduated from James Monroe High School in the Bronx and studied part-time at the Art Students League in Manhattan until attending night classes with György Kepes at Brooklyn College. He began his time in Hollywood during the 1940s doing print work for film ads, until he collaborated with filmmaker Otto Preminger to design a film poster for his 1954 film Carmen Jones. Otto Preminger was so impressed with Bass's work that he asked him to produce the title sequence as well. This was when Bass first saw the opportunity to create a title sequence which would ultimately enhance the experience of the audience and contribute to the mood and the theme of the movie within the opening moments. Bass was one of the first to realise the creative potential of the opening and closing credits of a movie.
During the 1960s, Bass was asked by directors and producers to produce not only title sequences for their films, but also to visualise and storyboard key scenes and sequences within them. Bass has the unusual credit of “visual consultant” or “pictorial consultant” on five films. For Spartacus (1960), Bass as “visual consultant” designed key elements of the gladiator school and storyboarded the final battle between slaves and Romans. John Frankenheimer, the director of Grand Prix (1966), had Bass storyboard, direct, and edit all but one of the racing sequences for his film. For West Side Story(1961) Bass filmed the prologue, storyboarded the opening dance sequence, and created the ending title sequence.
It is Bass’s credited role as “pictorial consultant” for Alfred Hitchcock on Psycho (1960), however, that has caused some controversy and debate. Bass claimed that he participated in directing the highlight scene of Psycho, the tightly edited shower-murder sequence, though several on set at the time (including star Janet Leigh) disputed this claim. It can be argued, however, that the dispute was semantic in nature with Bass highlighting his contribution to designing the scene, while the position of others was based on the scene being literally directed by Hitchcock as the film director ultimately in charge of all artistic decisions.
The research of several film scholars on Hitchcock's production of Psycho validates the claim that Bass in his capacity as a graphic artist did indeed have a significant influence on the visual design and pacing of that famous scene. Hitchcock had asked Bass to design and produce storyboards for the shower murder scene and for some other scenes in the film. For this, Bass received a credit as Pictorial Consultant as well as Title Designer. Janet Leigh told Donald Spoto that “the planning of the shower scene was left up to Saul Bass, and Hitchcock followed his storyboard precisely. Because of this . . . [the shooting] went very professionally,”and she told Stephen Rebello that “Mr. Hitchcock showed Saul Bass’s storyboards to me quite proudly, telling me in exact detail how he was going to shoot the scene from Saul’s plans”.
Bill Krohn has noted that Bass's 48 story board panels for the scene introduced all the key aspects of the final shower murder scene - most notably, the fact that the attacker appears as a silhouette, close-ups of a slashing knife, the shower curtain torn down, a shot of the shower head from below, Marion's desperate outstretched arm, and the famous shot of the transition from the drain hole of the bathtub to Marion Crane's dead eye. Krohn notes that this final transition is highly reminiscent of Bass's iris titles for Vertigo. Krohn also concludes that Bass did not literally direct the shower scene, proving Hitchcock's presence on the set throughout the shooting of that scene.Bass introduced the idea of using a montage of fast cuts and tight framing to render a violent, bloody murder as an impressionistic and nearly bloodless one. Hitchcock felt uncertain about Bass’s conception of the scene fearing that audiences might not accept such a stylized and quickly cut sequence. In an interview with film historian Pat Kirkham, Bass recalled, “Having designed and storyboarded the shower sequence, I showed it to Hitch. He was uneasy about it. It was very un-Hitchcockian in character. He never used that kind of quick cutting; he loved the long shot”.
To convince Hitchcock that the scene would work as planned, eight days before shooting of the final shower scene, Bass used a newsreel camera and Janet Leigh’s stand-in Marli Renfro to shoot footage on the set to plan the shots in more detail. Working with Hitchcock's editor George Tomasini, he edited this footage following the storyboards to show Hitchcock how the scene could work. In the end, Hitchcock gave his approval but, according to Kirkham, made two additions: a spray of blood on the chest of Marion Crane/Janet Leigh as she slides down the tiles, and a close-up of her belly getting stabbed.
In 1964, Bass directed a short film titled The Searching Eye shown during the 1964 New York World's Fair, coproduced with Sy Wexler. He also directed a short documentary film called Why Man Creates for which he won an Academy Award Oscar in 1968. An abbreviated version of that film was broadcast that year on the first episode of the television newsmagazine 60 Minutes. In 2002, this film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Bass co-directed, with Elaine Bass, several other short films, two of which were nominated for Academy Award Oscars; Notes on the Popular Arts in 1977, and The Solar Film in 1979, the latter for which Robert Redford was the executive producer.
He died on the 25th April 1996 (age 75) in Los Angeles, California, USA.
Saul Bass was born on May 8, 1920, in the Bronx, New York, United States, to Eastern European Jewish immigrant parents. He graduated from James Monroe High School in the Bronx and studied part-time at the Art Students League in Manhattan until attending night classes with György Kepes at Brooklyn College. He began his time in Hollywood during the 1940s doing print work for film ads, until he collaborated with filmmaker Otto Preminger to design a film poster for his 1954 film Carmen Jones. Otto Preminger was so impressed with Bass's work that he asked him to produce the title sequence as well. This was when Bass first saw the opportunity to create a title sequence which would ultimately enhance the experience of the audience and contribute to the mood and the theme of the movie within the opening moments. Bass was one of the first to realise the creative potential of the opening and closing credits of a movie.
During the 1960s, Bass was asked by directors and producers to produce not only title sequences for their films, but also to visualise and storyboard key scenes and sequences within them. Bass has the unusual credit of “visual consultant” or “pictorial consultant” on five films. For Spartacus (1960), Bass as “visual consultant” designed key elements of the gladiator school and storyboarded the final battle between slaves and Romans. John Frankenheimer, the director of Grand Prix (1966), had Bass storyboard, direct, and edit all but one of the racing sequences for his film. For West Side Story(1961) Bass filmed the prologue, storyboarded the opening dance sequence, and created the ending title sequence.
It is Bass’s credited role as “pictorial consultant” for Alfred Hitchcock on Psycho (1960), however, that has caused some controversy and debate. Bass claimed that he participated in directing the highlight scene of Psycho, the tightly edited shower-murder sequence, though several on set at the time (including star Janet Leigh) disputed this claim. It can be argued, however, that the dispute was semantic in nature with Bass highlighting his contribution to designing the scene, while the position of others was based on the scene being literally directed by Hitchcock as the film director ultimately in charge of all artistic decisions.
The research of several film scholars on Hitchcock's production of Psycho validates the claim that Bass in his capacity as a graphic artist did indeed have a significant influence on the visual design and pacing of that famous scene. Hitchcock had asked Bass to design and produce storyboards for the shower murder scene and for some other scenes in the film. For this, Bass received a credit as Pictorial Consultant as well as Title Designer. Janet Leigh told Donald Spoto that “the planning of the shower scene was left up to Saul Bass, and Hitchcock followed his storyboard precisely. Because of this . . . [the shooting] went very professionally,”and she told Stephen Rebello that “Mr. Hitchcock showed Saul Bass’s storyboards to me quite proudly, telling me in exact detail how he was going to shoot the scene from Saul’s plans”.
Bill Krohn has noted that Bass's 48 story board panels for the scene introduced all the key aspects of the final shower murder scene - most notably, the fact that the attacker appears as a silhouette, close-ups of a slashing knife, the shower curtain torn down, a shot of the shower head from below, Marion's desperate outstretched arm, and the famous shot of the transition from the drain hole of the bathtub to Marion Crane's dead eye. Krohn notes that this final transition is highly reminiscent of Bass's iris titles for Vertigo. Krohn also concludes that Bass did not literally direct the shower scene, proving Hitchcock's presence on the set throughout the shooting of that scene.Bass introduced the idea of using a montage of fast cuts and tight framing to render a violent, bloody murder as an impressionistic and nearly bloodless one. Hitchcock felt uncertain about Bass’s conception of the scene fearing that audiences might not accept such a stylized and quickly cut sequence. In an interview with film historian Pat Kirkham, Bass recalled, “Having designed and storyboarded the shower sequence, I showed it to Hitch. He was uneasy about it. It was very un-Hitchcockian in character. He never used that kind of quick cutting; he loved the long shot”.
To convince Hitchcock that the scene would work as planned, eight days before shooting of the final shower scene, Bass used a newsreel camera and Janet Leigh’s stand-in Marli Renfro to shoot footage on the set to plan the shots in more detail. Working with Hitchcock's editor George Tomasini, he edited this footage following the storyboards to show Hitchcock how the scene could work. In the end, Hitchcock gave his approval but, according to Kirkham, made two additions: a spray of blood on the chest of Marion Crane/Janet Leigh as she slides down the tiles, and a close-up of her belly getting stabbed.
In 1964, Bass directed a short film titled The Searching Eye shown during the 1964 New York World's Fair, coproduced with Sy Wexler. He also directed a short documentary film called Why Man Creates for which he won an Academy Award Oscar in 1968. An abbreviated version of that film was broadcast that year on the first episode of the television newsmagazine 60 Minutes. In 2002, this film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Bass co-directed, with Elaine Bass, several other short films, two of which were nominated for Academy Award Oscars; Notes on the Popular Arts in 1977, and The Solar Film in 1979, the latter for which Robert Redford was the executive producer.
He died on the 25th April 1996 (age 75) in Los Angeles, California, USA.
SAUL BASS - AWARDS
Academy Awards, USA:
1980 Nominated Oscar- Best Short Film, Live Action The Solar Film (1980)
Shared with: Michael Britton
1978 Nominated Oscar- Best Short Film, Live Action
Notes on the Popular Arts (1978)
1969 Won Oscar- Best Documentary, Short Subjects Why Man Creates (1968)
Fantafestival:
1984 Won Special Award- Quest (1984)
Sitges - Catalonian International Film Festival:
1994 Won Time-Machine Honorary Award
Venice Film Festival:
1965 Won Lion of San Marco-Best Film about Adolescence
The Searching Eye (1964)
Academy Awards, USA:
1980 Nominated Oscar- Best Short Film, Live Action The Solar Film (1980)
Shared with: Michael Britton
1978 Nominated Oscar- Best Short Film, Live Action
Notes on the Popular Arts (1978)
1969 Won Oscar- Best Documentary, Short Subjects Why Man Creates (1968)
Fantafestival:
1984 Won Special Award- Quest (1984)
Sitges - Catalonian International Film Festival:
1994 Won Time-Machine Honorary Award
Venice Film Festival:
1965 Won Lion of San Marco-Best Film about Adolescence
The Searching Eye (1964)
A.J