Pablo Ferro got his big break when he was asked by Stanley Kubrick to design the opening title sequence and cut a trailer for Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb in 1964. He went on to design opening title sequences for over 100 films including Bullitt, Harold & Maude, Beetlejuice, To Die For and Napoleon Dynamite but his most groundbreaking and most imitated work are the splitscreen titles and montage sequences he created for Norman Jewison's The Thomas Crown Affair.
The Thomas Crown Affair// Polo Scene
Ferro says the sequences were influenced by magazine design; "I'd look at magazines and see a bunch of pictures on a page, and I thought, 'That's beautiful. If I could ever get that into a movie it would be amazing.'" Through experimenting he realized that it was possible to breakdown the cinema screen into segments and show the audience more than one thing happening at once without losing their interest. He was an early believer in people's ability to take in lots of information at once, his work paving the way for the MTV and YouTube generations of the future. He developed a frenetic cutting style in his early commercials work that he used to dazzling effect on both the Dr. Strangelove trailer and the second trailer he cut for Kubrick; A Clockwork Orange. These were unlike anything cinema audiences had ever seen at the time and remain far more bold and intriguing than the majority of modern trailers.
Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb// Trailer
A Clockwork Orange// Trailer
Pablo Ferro is a colourful character who, in his later years, is never seen without his trademark red woolly scarf. At 77 he is still designing, directing and consulting. The 2012 documentary included many hand animated inserts that he produced himself.
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