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Info: Subtitle font used in Star Wars (ANH, ROTJ)

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 (Edited)

The subtitle font appears to be Franklin Gothic Demi Condensed, Bold, 56 pt, color #E0E7D3 (RGB triplet; SSA uses BGR).

From my empirical observations, as seen in this clip which is derived from the DVD, the match is close, if not identical.

This might be of use to some restorationists.

Moll.

"Right now the coffees are doing their final work." (Airi, Masked Rider Den-o episode 1)

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This page has plenty of info as well



Z: Updated link with new URL.

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
<span class=“Bold”>JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
<span class=“Bold”>Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.</span>

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Then I was right on the money. XD They also say Franklin Gothic Demi.

Though I don't think their "A long time ago" shot is in the right font.

Moll.

"Right now the coffees are doing their final work." (Airi, Masked Rider Den-o episode 1)

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I'm looking for the font used in the ISOMIX version of these. As far as I can tell, it's FF Dirty Seven Two. Anyone have a copy of this or better yet a free clone version? I'm not paying $20- $40 for it! If anyone can help provide me with a free version or close substitute, I would appreciate it. Thanks! marioxb@ameritech.net
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Franklin may be the font used on the DVDs, but the SE laserdiscs (and possibly the VHS tapes before the SE) used something a lot like AlternateGot3D (which is similar to FF Dirty Seven Two), and I think it looks a lot nicer. I made "burned in" subtitles for my edition, partly
because I don't know how to do DVD subtitle streams, but mainly because I think DVD subtitle streams look ugly.

http://img15.imgspot.com/u/06/61/17/ldsub1141425947.jpg

DE
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Here's another suggestion from Darryl Herschler's web site. The font from his site is Alt Gothic (aka "AlternateGothic2 BT"). Let's do a little comparison, shall we?

I've taken Darryl's suggestion along with Molly's ("Franklin Gothic Demi Condensed") and DE's ("AlternateGotNo3D"), added a couple of my own, and compared them to the X0 capture of the US Definitive LD. "Franklin Gothic LT Extra Condensed" and "AlternateGothicEF No.2" are two fonts I have that look pretty close as well.

I would include "FF Dirty Seven Two" but I don't have it.

The fonts have been spaced to match the LD capture.

http://img481.imageshack.us/img481/1594/subtitles4rx.png

I think AlternateGotNo3D looks the closest out of these. But it still doesn't look like the exact font.


Image updated with DE's font.

My Projects:
[Holiday Special Hybrid DVD v2]
[X0 Project]
[Backstroke of the West DVD]
[ROTS Theatrical DVD]

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Only one edit needed: it's Darryl Hirschler, not David!
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On the same note, is there a consenus on the colour of both "A long time ago", and the original "Lucasfilm Limited" title cards? Not the awful respective metalized, lens flare, shiny pretty distracting thing, and the aquamaine of the 2005 discs, but the theatrical prints of ANH. I've got pretty close to nailing the shape, spacing, and the timing of the fade in/out on these. But the variety in the available LD rips has left me bewildered as to the proper colours.
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Sorry to revive this old thread but I have some information about the subject, straight from the source.

The font in the original trilogy was actually a custom, hand painted one. The special editions used Impact.
In The Force Awakens they used TradeGothicLTStd-Bold, to imitate the original one.

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 (Edited)

I believe Catbus has created an exact match from screen captures for both the ANH and ROTJ. They are virtually identical. From what he found, it is not surprising to hear that the OT were custom made. From his observations, the original is Franklin Gothic slightly rounded.

And with fonts, what is in a name is the general shape and characteristics of the letters. There can be slight variations from vendor to vendor on how the font is rendered that can change things slightly. With the fonts on my computer, the fonts that Catbus created seem over bold. Almost as if it were Frankling Gothic Demi Condensed but over exposed, giving it an extra bold and rounded look. And from my attempts to recreate pre-computer age typefaces, a great many were modified during the transition. I have one where the lower case y was changed, but every other letter is identical. They probably used a standard typeface that has been altered when they created the font.

(Note: From a technical aspect, the typeface is the design of the letters - it can be patented, but not copyrighted. A font is a vector graphic representation of a typeface that can be scaled, compressed, expanded, warped, etc. and is copyrighted… until you render it as a bitmap and lose the unique vector points.)

Also, I just checked the TPM alien subtitles and they are nearly identical to the ROTJ one. They are slightly narrower, but the same typeface. The lower case g is slightly different, so it isn’t an exact match, but very close.

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 (Edited)

The size of the font, as well as its boldness and apparent color, are dependent on exposure and cropping–and this, I learned, is not consistent from film to film, nor is it even consistent from subtitle to subtitle within the same film. For example, if the subtitle was added, but then the frame was slightly cropped, that would effectively make that subtitle larger and bolder than a subtitle added to a frame that was not cropped. Similarly, the position of the subtitles within the frame could move.

The fonts I came up with were for a specific purpose–to blend when shown in sequence, but not necessarily to be identical side-by-side. They aren’t designed to be authoritative, and they don’t exactly match any subtitle–they’re more like the median representative subtitle.

IIRC, of the fonts I made, Star Wars is boldest, Jedi is less bold, and you could grab the German ROTJ font for what’s probably the least bold of them all. But they are all the same font, with variations in exposure, etc.

Keep in mind that the graphical SUP files for the alien subtitles are based on actual 35mm prints, not from the font files. While the images for Jedi were made by Harmy (who is skilled in such things), the ones for Star Wars were made by me, and have some flaws. Specifically, each individual subtitle should have some color variation within it, the ones for Star Wars don’t have much. This probably gives them more of a clipped, flat feeling (maybe could be interpreted as boldness) that you don’t see in the Jedi ones. Nevertheless they do have all the variation in size, boldness, and even variable letter forms and letter spacing that you can see in the films.

If you want to use the actual subtitles from the films, use the SUP files. They are much better, albeit not flawless (well, maybe the SUP files for Jedi are…). If you want to use the fonts, well, they’re honestly probably good enough for your purposes, and I’m not looking to improve them because they’re good enough for mine.

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)