Richard Morrison – A Man Of Entitlement

Richard Morrison - A Man Of Entitlement

As a titles designer with over three decades in the business, Richard Morrison has seen plenty of changes in the industry. Here he discusses how credits have become part of the filmgoing experience. Text: Chris Patmore

Although the majority of cinema-goers leave their seats as soon as the end credits start to roll, the opening titles have become an unmissable part of the film-viewing experience. One of the pioneers of integrated credits sequences is the highly-respected British designer Richard Morrison who, over more than 30 years, has created opening titles for more than 130 films; among them such memorable movies as Ghandi, Brazil, A Passage To India, Batman, High Fidelity and Sweeney Todd. It’s surprising to learn, then, that Morrison didn’t set out to be a titles designer.

“I was a graphic designer-painter-photographer, then a friend of my father, who was a film editor, said, ‘Do you fancy doing a stint at a trailer company near Pinewood?’” he recalls. “So I said I could do that, and I bumped into Maurice Binder [designer of the iconic Bond titles]. That was in the days of rostrum cameras, film opticals – an organic way of creating stuff. He showed me a few things and said I should have a go at it myself. The first one that I did was Quadrophenia.”

When one thinks of film titles, it is invariably the graphic work of Hitchcock collaborator Saul Bass that springs to mind. And, with his graphics background, Morrison also started with typographic work, but that has changed over the years. “I’ve evolved more now to consider the story, or a set of events in the background, that will link you into the film, so the whole thing becomes like a seamless link,” he explains. “You’ve got a typical opening sequence, which is three-and-half minutes of blank space, so you might as well fill it with something creative. When the lights go down, before it even starts and people are rustling around with their popcorn, they’re not really paying attention, so you need to grab their attention within three minutes, or even a minute. A lot of people I’ve asked have said, ‘It’s great because we can almost judge if we are going to stay with the film based on those first three minutes.'”

Nowadays, the simple typographic solutions have become a bit passé, at least on big-budget films where the titles are part of the opening scenes. “I started that a long time ago,” says Morrison. “What’s probably helped my reputation is that I am very good at listening to directors and producers, so I can come up with a series of ideas that don’t actually upset their vision. With the advent of the digital age it’s much easier to come up with ideas and show them very quickly how you can make that transition. If you’ve got the ability to do it, you only need a pencil and a piece of paper to do it anyway. I’m selling an idea, not a lot of bits of glossy typography. Every film is a unique experience and you have to almost embody that experience in order to get the idea. There are a lot of elements of information that you need to take on in order to come up with the right combination of events to get you to the front of the film.”

Although he is still creating titles, having just finished work on Stephen Frears’ latest film Tamara Drew Richard also divides his time between directing for production company th1ng, setting up his LA office with post-production mogul Mo Hendry and teaching; he’s an honorary professor at Dundee University. The most common question he is asked is, ‘How do you get into it?’ to which he says there is no simple answer. “If I was an accountant I could show a step-by-step process, but the film industry doesn’t work like that. You have to have the passion and see it as a marathon and not a sprint. It’s never going to happen in five minutes, unless you’re very lucky. Falling over and making mistakes is all part of the process. In colleges, I try to instil in them to make those mistakes, because they are in a safe environment, and from those mistakes they learn so much. It can be frustrating, from my point of view, that they just don’t grasp that element. They still think it’s kind of textbook, and it just so isn’t. Creativity is a fast thing. It’s just a moment, and it also requires not thinking.”

This article first appeared in Moviescope magazine.