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Altered States (1980)

Altered States
What we saw tonight was a physical phenomenon, an inexplicable physical phenomenon!
—Arthur Rosenberg
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Beginning with Stop, a short film Richard Greenberg made in university in the late ’60s, the thread that would run most clearly throughout much of the title design of R/Greenberg Associates is a particular application of typography. Their first title sequence, for 1978's Superman, involved the innovation of a slit-scan technology that would allow the title to "swoop" through space. Next came Ridley Scott's Alien featuring strangely dismembered bits of type, lending the opening a definitively ominous tone.

Altered States, from 1980, uses a geometric sans-serif typeface, a slightly modified ITC Avant Garde Gothic. The letters invade, becoming a lens for the scene and conveying a sense of encroachment. They shuffle themselves disorientingly, the man within eventually lost to text. This technique and the use of type as a lens can be seen again in the titles to The Dead Zone. This usage of type as structure and as obstruction is a motif to which Richard would return again and again.

  • Summary
  • Credits

Title Designer RICHARD GREENBERG and RGA CEO ROBERT GREENBERG speak about their work on Altered States in this excerpt from our feature article R/Greenberg Associates: A Film Title Retrospective.

So what was after Alien? Was it Altered States?

Richard: Altered States was in there. Usually when you’re developing ideas you try to present a couple of storyboards that you at least believe in but I had the notion that we could set up the film by putting type against type. I thought I could set up a metaphor of the first trip because that’s what the movie’s about, so I made a little piece of film instead.

That seems to be a clear thread connecting much of your work, actually. There’s a clear progression with the use of type.

Richard: I really liked that way of teasing of the audience. Bass would do stuff like that — using a motif and then transforming it, like an eye. I believe a classic title sequence could be a tease, like Altered States was, where you didn’t really know what you were looking at and then there was the “A-ha!” moment.

Robert: Richard really came out of the world’s best program, which happened to be at the University of Illinois. David Colley was his teacher, and my brother came out with, essentially, a masters education in typography. Most other people don’t. Kyle Cooper did. Richard was way ahead of me in that regard — he had all the right influences. He met or knew a lot of the type designers when we used to hire.

So, you wanted to use type as a tease in Altered States?

Richard: Right, so we just shot type going against type on color film. I went out to California on a Saturday night and I showed it to Stuart Baird who was the editor, and Ken the director. Ken just recently passed away, actually.

Yeah, Ken Russell.

Richard: Yeah, Ken Russell and Danny Melnick, the producer, were there. I remember sitting far away from them in the screening room. I was so nervous and I thought to myself, “What if they don’t like this? I don’t have another idea.” But they loved it and we produced it and it all fell into place.

View the credits for this sequence

Title Credits Produced and Designed by: R/Greenberg Associates, Inc. / Richard Greenberg

Related

  • R/Greenberg Associates: A Film Title Retrospective

    R/Greenberg Associates: A Film Title Retrospective

    feature interview

  • The Dead Zone

    The Dead Zone

    summary

  • Superman

    Superman

    summary

  • Alien

    Alien

    summary

  • The World According to Garp

    The World According to Garp

    summary

  • Blow Out

    Blow Out

    summary

Title sequence

  • Production Studio

    R/Greenberg Associates (R/GA)
  • Title Designer

    Richard Greenberg
  • Category

    Film
  • Styles

    1980s, animation, animation stand, classic, live action, main title, mixed-media, montage, optical, rostrum camera, typographic
Altered States
  • Film Director

    Ken Russell
  • Release Date

    December 25, 1980
  • Aspect Ratio

    1.85:1
  • Studio

    Warner Bros.
  • Country

    USA
  • Language

    English
  • Reviews

    Reviews on Letterboxd
  • IMDb has full details

Article

  • Writer

    Lola Landekic
  • Published

    September 25, 2013

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