Saul Bass’s Movie Posters

Vertical video is everywhere, from music videos to commercials. Well, almost everywhere. There aren’t that many video essays that go vertical. There are obvious reasons for this: video essays most often study television shows and movies, both of which are still horizontally inclined. But even the video essays that do discuss this new vertical paradigm still do so in a classic 16/9 frame.

 

This video by Andrew Saladino of The Royal Ocean Film Society is an exception. It opts for a vertical frame for a very good reason, because it’s dedicated not to (horizontal) movies but to (vertical) movie posters. Those of Saul Bass, whose iconic designs have been the subject of several interesting video essays. One of those earlier videos was even made by the same Andrew Saladino. That was a horizontal video, but his more recent vertical effort suits the subject like a glove. The clever little animations that were added to the posters further stress the genius of Bass’ idea-driven designs.