Design & Film: Opening Acts
A Video Salon with Curator Peter Lucas
Sunday, November 21, 1PM
Location: Aurora Video Library, 1524 Sul Ross
FREE ADMISSION

Aurora Picture Show hosts a FREE Video Salon with curator Peter Lucas entitled "Design and Film: Opening Acts." The one hour discussion will focus on the history of title sequences in film and include sample excerpts from some popular titles. The salon is scheduled for 1 p.m. Sunday, November 21 at the Aurora Picture Show Video Library, 1524 Sul Ross. 

For this special salon, Lucas presents a primer on those dynamic first few minutes of feature films that set the stage. At their best, these movie appetizers are great short films in and of themselves, combining elements of typography, animation, visual effects, still and live-action photography, music and sound, and clever editing. While it's largely ignored in historic overviews of both cinema and design, this fringe history of creative, efficient, and often experimental movie intros has had a great impact on contemporary film, art and motion graphics. 

Lucas will screen a selection of opening sequences created in the 1950s and 60s- the "golden age"- and discuss this interdisciplinary history. Attendees will see full sequences created by master designer Saul Bass ("Anatomy Of A Murder", "Vertigo," "Seconds"), Maurice Binder ("Dr. No," "Arabesque"),Robert Brownjohn ("From Russia With Love"), Pablo Ferro ("Dr. Strangelove," "The Thomas Crown Affair"), and many others. 

Historic intersections of film and design have never been so relevant, and these pre-digital-age sequences are as entertaining to a general audience as they are inspiring to filmmakers, video artists and designers. 

Peter Lucas is a curator and educator living in Houston, TX. He is currently Education Associate with the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston and Curator of the annual ByDesign festival in Seattle. Peter has worked as a Film Programmer with Northwest Film Forum, Seattle International Film Festival, and Experience Music Project. With a particular interest in exploring various intersections of music, visual art, and design with moving image media, he has presented numerous programs and talks at Cornish College of the Arts, School of Visual Concepts, Sound Unseen Film and Music Festival, Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, and Aurora Picture Show.