Title & FontAnalysing and researching film’s titles in trailers and film

openings.

Titles And Fonts

Trailer’s titles are different from film titles. They serve a difference purpose.

They attempt to inform the audience more information about the film itself; perhaps if the chosen footage does not provide enough.

A collection of footage from the film may not make any sense for the audience if they have no idea of what this unknown film could be about, so the titles within the trailer helps the audience to understand.

The titles are also yet another element of the trailer (and film also) that is vital to establishing the correct mood to its respective genres is the titles. Different font styles have different effects on audiences and different expectations. 

Thus, I analyzed different typefaces used in different films and their effect on the reader/audience.

Film Opening Titles

Catch Me If You Can (2002)

Catch Me If You Can illustrated perhaps one of the most memorable opening title sequences in film. It featured a cartoon-like chase throughout various scenarios which shows a descriptive outline of the film's main concept of the chase in its plot. It was designed by the production company Nexus Productions and its typography & layout designed by Olivier Marquézy.Its font is an ordinary sans-serif font, which looks controlled and somewhat professional; similar to ones in airport signs, which further enforced the film’s main theme.

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Courtesy of Art of the Title.com

Like Catch If You Can’s opening sequence, Juno’s sequence also made its mark in the industry. It is definitely one of the most recent and memorable opening title sequence as its design was very creative and effective to its genre.It was designed by Shadowplay Studio and its font sets the right tone for the respective genre; it also relates to its teenage characters as the font is messy, whimsy and colourful; somewhat similar to teenage handwriting.

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Courtesy of Art of the Title.com

Juno (2007)

Fonts

Cursive Fonts

“Cursive” coming from the Latin meaning “flowing” is a style of handwriting some people use.

Its purpose is for faster writing as the letters “flow” into each other in continuous strokes.

Computer programs today offer some cursive-style fonts for us to use digitally.

Fonts like French Script and Lucida Handwriting

However I feel these fonts would not suit my trailer as it is of a thriller genre, and cursive fonts are generally viewed to be more feminine and soft.

A genre like thrillers and horror have to offer more mysteriousness and be stronger, causing more impact on the viewer.

Serifs and Sans-Serif

Serif fonts are the ones with the extend bits at the ends of each letters, like this font.

Sans-serifs are the opposite: they are without the “serifs”, like this.

These are the most common fonts used in computers nowadays as they are easier and clearer to understand.

Seeing as cursive fonts are not suitable for a thriller film, these fonts are the other options.

But the choice is between the two: Serif or Sans-Serif?

Looking at more films and trailers will give me a better idea of what is appropiate in the film insdustry for this respective genre so I went and researched some more…

Trailer Titles

Catfish’s Titles

Catfish’s titles offer this information as some of them read: “Not inspired by true events. Just true.” and the film name follows.

The font used is a type of sans-serif font, strong and sharp in white against a black background.

Using black backgrounds rather than a coloured one (i.e. blue or pink) offers the mysterious atmosphere and reveals less about any tone of the film.

This works for Catfish as their aims is to reveal as less as possible about the plot and its twists…

Other Trailer Titles

This is also true for Cloverfield (above), Inception and The Day After Tomorrow’s (below)teaser trailers.

They feature black backgrounds with brighter coloured fonts which keep up the mysterious tones the trailers already offer.

These are much effective, and according to my research rather common I the industry, meaning that it would suit my trailer if I followed a similar idea.