Question, Re: Image restoration (can this be done?)

[takearushfan]

Well, if it's a custom font then "crap", but at least we know there are fonts that are so close they can fool you. That's a good and bad thing. Good for those that don't care about the integrity of the original, bad for those that do. I'm the latter, but only up to a point. This "work" is merely a hobby of mine and if it takes too much more work/becomes even more tedious then I'll settle for "close enough"
Does anyone have some constructive criticism of the video I posted?
Thanks again, all

[takearushfan]

On basically the same note, I find it interesting how even modern films may still use "standard" fonts. For the heck of it I tried out 1408, Crash, Final Destination, Girl Interrupted and some other more recent films. The verdict is that they used pretty common fonts; nothing "commercial" per say.
On the other hand, I tried some older films and "whatthefont" had a hell of a time trying to identify the fonts... ie., A Nightmare on Elm Street, Black Christmas, Pyscho, Suspiria, etc. However, with most of the older ones I'm not surprised that it couldn't find a match, as it's rather easy to tell just by looking at the main title that it's not even a custom "font", but rather custom "artwork" (might be a better term). For instance, look at the "Nightmare" title attached. You can't tell me that's a non-commercial font. If you can find a match to that... more power to ya!

[AlanHK]

You should never mix fonts in the same word -- if you must have the other form of g, swap the whole font.

Yes and no.

You really have to be an expert to mix fonts. Many features of a font are part of the design that makes it harmonious. You can't just take a few letters from one Bodoni and a few from another. The serifs, the stem thickness, all the angles, and so one all have to match exactly, otherwise you get the ransom note effect.
However, there are families of fonts designed so you can choose alternate forms of a letter, or ligatures (combined letters, like fi, oe) and the newer OpenType format allows all these to be placed in the same font file.

While you might get away with using the capitals from one font and the lower case from another -- there are ornate capital fonts you might use for initials, say. But the specific suggestion of dropping a "g" from one font into another would almost certainly be a bad idea.

[AlanHK]

On basically the same note, I find it interesting how even modern films may still use "standard" fonts. For the heck of it I tried out 1408, Crash, Final Destination, Girl Interrupted and some other more recent films. The verdict is that they used pretty common fonts; nothing "commercial" per say.

I don't know what you mean by "commercial" in this context.
You seem to be opposing it to "common", but again I don't know what you mean by that.

On the other hand, I tried some older films and "whatthefont" had a hell of a time trying to identify the fonts... ie., A Nightmare on Elm Street, Black Christmas, Pyscho, Suspiria, etc. However, with most of the older ones I'm not surprised that it couldn't find a match, as it's rather easy to tell just by looking at the main title that it's not even a custom "font", but rather custom "artwork" (might be a better term). For instance, look at the "Nightmare" title attached. You can't tell me that's a non-commercial font. If you can find a match to that... more power to ya!

Yes, text and especially the main titles were often all hand drawn.

However, if this calligraphy catches the interest of font designers, professional or amateur, it can often be used to inspire a digital font.
See Famous Fonts for many like this.

[lordsmurf]

You really have to be an expert to mix fonts. Many features of a font are part of the design that makes it harmonious. You can't just take a few letters from one Bodoni and a few from another. The serifs, the stem thickness, all the angles, and so one all have to match exactly, otherwise you get the ransom note effect. ... While you might get away with using the capitals from one font and the lower case from another -- there are ornate capital fonts you might use for initials, say. But the specific suggestion of dropping a "g" from one font into another would almost certainly be a bad idea.

Yes, you most definitely have to custom the text widths, stroke thickness, kerning, etc. -- that's where the "professional designer" part comes into play.

[sphinx99]

I have some secondary experience with this, having a sibling who is a freelance typographer for several large studios.

Budget obviously is a driver - with smaller production budgets, fonts serve little purpose other than to communicate credits at the end. It's the films with larger production budgets that introduce concepts of (a) style/tone, (b) cross-media marketing and (c) cross-media legibility that lead directly to unique typefaces for the film.

Most fonts are designed for artistry and legibility on static, small printed media, like books and magazines. A font that looks great at the local bookstore may struggle in motion on a large screen at 24p. So, movie fonts tend to be vertically elongated. Other qualities (kerning, serifs, stems) are dictated by the use of the font in opening credits. The font used as a title also has to be recognizable across media ranging from promotional coffee mugs to theater movie posters to signage at toy stores, and Times New Roman isn't going to cut it. Hence, when budget permits, movie typography enters the production process extremely early, in order to have some basic assets in place for theatrical teasers...

Personally I think it's unnecessary aside from the movie title itself.

[AlanHK]

A font that looks great at the local bookstore may struggle in motion on a large screen at 24p. So, movie fonts tend to be vertically elongated.

I've heard that the reason for this is more that the size of actors', and other creative people's, credits is specified in their contracts. This is stated in points, the height of the font. To maximise this the thinnest possible font of that size is used; and this is at a cost in legibility. A highly compressed font in all caps is quite hard to read.

[takearushfan]

Interesting. You learn something new every day. I had no idea that font size is specified in their contracts. In the case of the original Elm Street, the actual titles that display after that custom title are those that "whatthefont" could identify, not that I recall what the font was. They also seem to be the same size throughout the intro. Maybe it's that the film was so low-budget that it didn't even occur to them...?