Person Details

Birthday:

Aliases: No known aliases

Gender: Male

Place of birth: New York City, New York, U.S.

Homepage:

Movie Involvements: 253

TV Involvements: 0


Most Famous Work

Biography

Daniel Richard Perri (born August 11, 1945) is an American film and television title sequence designer. He has worked in film title design since the 1970s, and has been responsible for the main titles of several notable films including The Exorcist (1973), Taxi Driver (1976), Star Wars (1977), Raging Bull (1980), Airplane! (1980),[1] and Suspiria (2018). Perri made contact with the film graphics designer Saul Bass and began to pester him for work at his studio on Sunset Boulevard. Eventually, Perri found work with Bass through his illustrator, Art Goodman. During his service in the US Navy, Perri served on the USS Repose and designed an on-board newspaper, entitled The Repose Reprise. After serving in the Navy, Perri went to work with Cinefx alongside Phill Norman, Wayne Fitzgerald Don Record, and a former school friend, Steve Smith. After a year, both Perri and Smith quit and went on to form their independent design studio, Perri & Smith. The pair worked together from 1969 to 1973, mostly on small, low-budget television features, but their credits also included films such as Electra Glide in Blue and several of Gene Corman's blaxploitation films. The designers were often exploited and clients sometimes failed to pay, and eventually, the business folded. Perri's big break came in 1973 when he was commissioned by Billy Friedkin to produce the main titles for The Exorcist, his first solo project. With a blockbuster film in his portfolio, Perri was now able to attract more work and soon found himself working on high-profile titles. For Nashville (1975), Robert Altman commissioned a main title sequence and a logo to be used in marketing. Perri produced an unusual, kitschy sequence inspired by low-budget K-Tel Records television commercials, complete with a loud, brash voiceover by Johnny Grant. In 1976, Martin Scorsese brought Perri in to design the titles for Taxi Driver. Perri took second unit footage and color-treated the film through a process of film copying and slit-scan, resulting in a highly stylized graphic sequence that evoked the "underbelly" of New York City through lurid colors, glowing neon signs distorted nocturnal images and deep black levels, accompanied by Bernard Herrmann's jazz soundtrack. Possibly Perri's best-known title sequence project came about in 1976 when his friend James Nelson was working on post-production for a new space fantasy film, Star Wars. Nelson recommended Perri to director George Lucas, who invited Perri to Industrial Light & Magic, Lucasfilm's post-production operation at Van Nuys, California. Lucas briefed Perri to take inspiration from old 1930s cinema serials such as Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers that had inspired Lucas to write much of his Star Wars story. After struggling to come up with a concept that Lucas liked, Perri eventually developed a concept for presenting a textual introduction based on the opening credits of the 1939 Cecil B. DeMille film, Union Pacific, in which the credits are shown distorted by a sharp perspective and rolling along a railroad track towards a distant vanishing point. Lucas approved of the idea and Perri produced sketches and prototype mechanical artwork, supported by storyboard artwork drawn by the production artist Alex Tavoularis. This gave birth to the now-familiar opening crawl sequence that appears in the Star Wars films.

Most Famous Work

Dead for a Dollar
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6

Dead for a Dollar

(2022) Title Designer
Alive
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7

Alive

(1993) Title Designer
Star Wars
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8

Star Wars

(1977) Title Designer
The Exorcist
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8

The Exorcist

(1973) Title Designer
Taxi Driver
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8

Taxi Driver

(1976) Title Designer
Platoon
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8

Platoon

(1986) Title Designer
The Aviator
Average
7

The Aviator

(2004) Title Designer
Airplane!
Average
7

Airplane!

(1980) Title Designer

Acting

Year Character Movie/Tv
2023 Self
2015 Waiter
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Art

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2022 Title Designer
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2006 Title Designer
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2005 Main Title Designer
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1998 Title Designer
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1996 Title Designer
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1992 Title Designer
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1991 Title Designer
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1990 Title Designer
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1987 Title Designer
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1986 Title Designer
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1985 Title Designer
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1983 Title Designer
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1982 Title Designer
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1981 Title Designer
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1980 Title Designer
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1979 Title Designer
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1978 Title Designer
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1977 Title Designer
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1976 Title Designer
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1975 Title Designer
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1974 Title Designer
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1973 Title Designer
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1972 Title Designer
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1971 Title Designer
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1970 Title Designer
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Year Role Movie/Tv

Costume & Make-Up

Year Role Movie/Tv
2022 Makeup & Hair
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Directing

Year Role Movie/Tv
2015 Director
1993 Second Unit Director
1987 Second Unit Director
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Production

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2015 Producer
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Writing

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2015 Screenplay
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