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Help Wanted: Making a PERFECT Crawl

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Yes, I know this is a common thread. “How do I makes the crawls?” “Can someone make my crawl for me?” etc. That’s not what I’m looking for.

I’m working with Adobe Illustrator and After Effects. I know how to type up the crawl. I know exactly how to animate it.

What I do no not know (or am not 100% sure of) are the nitty gritty specifics. Font size, spacing, that sort of thing. If anyone’s got any tips or info, it’d be much appreciated. Thanks!

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DominicCobb said:

Yes, I know this is a common thread. “How do I makes the crawls?” “Can someone make my crawl for me?” etc. That’s not what I’m looking for.

I’m working with Adobe Illustrator and After Effects. I know how to type up the crawl. I know exactly how to animate it.

What I do no not know (or am not 100% sure of) are the nitty gritty specifics. Font size, spacing, that sort of thing. If anyone’s got any tips or info, it’d be much appreciated. Thanks!

This video will help: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mG9ayM9c4eg Half the saga has one font style and the other half of the saga has a slightly different font and size style as explained in the video. Hope this helps.

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Thanks for the effort guys but honestly those don’t help. I’ve already been able to figure out which fonts to use through Google. What I can’t find (and what I assume some people here must know) is more specific stuff, like font size and spacing (between paragraphs, lines, words, and letters).

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I would create a flattened version of a crawl, load up the right font, then type over the crawl, messing with spacing in whatever program until you match. I’ll see if Adywan has any insight.

Star Wars Revisited Wordpress

Star Wars Visual Comparisons WordPress

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Alright, I thought I’d figured this all out myself some time ago, but looking back on what I scrapped together I noticed I was off in many ways. I think I’ve gotten it mostly down, but there’s just one egg I can’t crack–

What version of franklin gothic is used for the episode titles? I’ve been using franklin gothic demi extra compressed but I’ve recently noticed there are a few letters that are off. I’ve also tried franklin gothic demi extra condensed but that’s not quite right either. Thoughts people? Any idea where I can download the proper one?

Also, if anyone’s made a crawl in After Effects, I’m curious how. I mean, I know how, but I’m curious to hear other people’s methods.

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I made the crawl for Hal 9000’s TFA: Restructured v2 in After Effects. As you may or may not know, the real crawl for TFA was also made in After Effects.

Here’s the crawl I made next to the original crawl:
https://i.imgur.com/3KBqQuu.png

Basically what I did was make a tilted text layer in 3D space that’s filmed with a virtual camera. I did all the text formatting inside After Effects. The title is set in News Gothic Bold Extra Condensed and the rest of the text is in News Gothic Bold. The prequels used Univers Ultra Condensed for the title.

One thing that helps is to animate the text layer at twice the resolution (as a separate composition) and then scale it down, this makes everything look and move smoother. These things are the easy parts, then there are a lot of little details that give the right look to it. The original trilogy crawls were made by actually filming letters with a camera, and the sequel trilogy crawls were made in After Effects with the goal of looking like they were actually filmed. The prequel trilogy crawls are a bit more “perfect” and digital, but still have the depth of field effect. If you want a more retro look like the OT and ST, you’d want to get the right depth of field and add some gate weave as well as effects that get the right look of the text itself, perhaps some film grain too. I have seven effects just on the text to get the right softness and look of the depth of field.

I could send you a template, or just describe things in more detail if you’d like.

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Sir Ridley said:

I made the crawl for Hal 9000’s TFA: Restructured v2 in After Effects. As you may or may not know, the real crawl for TFA was also made in After Effects.

Here’s the crawl I made next to the original crawl:
https://i.imgur.com/3KBqQuu.png

Basically what I did was make a tilted text layer in 3D space that’s filmed with a virtual camera. I did all the text formatting inside After Effects. The title is set in News Gothic Bold Extra Condensed and the rest of the text is in News Gothic Bold. The prequels used Univers Ultra Condensed for the title.

One thing that helps is to animate the text layer at twice the resolution (as a separate composition) and then scale it down, this makes everything look and move smoother. These things are the easy parts, then there are a lot of little details that give the right look to it. The original trilogy crawls were made by actually filming letters with a camera, and the sequel trilogy crawls were made in After Effects with the goal of looking like they were actually filmed. The prequel trilogy crawls are a bit more “perfect” and digital, but still have the depth of field effect. If you want a more retro look like the OT and ST, you’d want to get the right depth of field and add some gate weave as well as effects that get the right look of the text itself, perhaps some film grain too. I have seven effects just on the text to get the right softness and look of the depth of field.

I could send you a template, or just describe things in more detail if you’d like.

Thanks Ridley.

I’ve been basing it off TFA too, oddly enough. Although it wasn’t until recently when I lined them up that I realized how far off they were. I didn’t know they did theirs in AE, though I figured that might be the case, which is kinda what’s making me think I shouldn’t not be able to line it up perfectly (although close enough would be fine)

We have a similar technique. In fact, if anything, the only real difference is I’ve made all the text in Adobe Illustrator, which I think helps, being able to separate it and just look at the text only without the effects.

I am curious though the specifics you use. I’d been under the impression that the focal length for the crawl was 24mm, but I’ve just recently noticed that 23mm might be closer to it. I haven’t played at all with DOF or put effects on it or anything (besides some homemade gate weave, although even on that I wonder how you did it). I also had the text at -70 x rotation but it seems that might even be a bit off. So yeah, curious to hear your specifics.

And also, it’s news gothic? Damn, I’d read somewhere awhile ago that it was franklin, I guess they lead me astray.

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Illustrator is probably not a bad idea once you know how to format everything. I did it inside After Effects just so I could tilt and edit the text on top of the real crawl and line everything up.

So, specifics. My text is in a separate 4K composition where I do all the movement (excluding gate weave, getting to that later) and fading of the text. Apparently my focal length is 50mm. Don’t know how I ended up with that number, but it works. Although I have to stretch the text layer about 200%. Maybe 23mm and no stretch works just as well, but this is what I ended up with. 36mm film. Aperture 25,5.

The angle is -79,8 (for matching the TFA crawl). Since this composition is where I edit the text I also keep a guideline layer to see how wide the paragraphs should be. And on the text layer I have a bunch of effects. A yellow Glow, to make the text a tiny bit thicker. And then a Refine Hard Matte which makes it a bit thicker again and smudges out some details when it goes blurry in the distance. And then a 0,5% Camera Lens Blur which doesn’t do much. And then a Set Matte which adds that little gradient fade in the distance of the text. A Simple Choker which makes the edges a bit less soft and more contrasty. A soft red Drop Shadow which makes the edges of the text warm and cozy. And finally a Fast Blur that just softens everything a bit. Now, all this may sound like nitpicking (and it is), but have a look at this with/without effects image and you can see it’s not completely pointless: https://i.imgur.com/SvKgO9O.jpg

And then on to the composition where I put everything together. I scale down the text layer to 50%. And then for the gate weave I put a Transform effect on the layer (you could use the built in Transform property, but this way it’s easy to turn on or off). Alt-click the stopwatch for Position and type in the expression: wiggle(6,0.5). This gives the text a slight jittery motion. Aaaand that’s it. Sprinkle some film grain on top if you want.

TV’s Frink said:

I thought it was Fake News Gothic.

It’s real. The News, the Gothic. All of it.

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That looks really nice. The only thing that looks a bit strange is when the title gets very small in the distance and it starts to look a bit fat and crushed in terms of luminance. The original Trilogy titles (at least the SE versions) pretty much retain their luminance throughout the crawl.
ROTJ

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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The fatness and fading into the distance are closely based on the TFA crawl. https://i.imgur.com/3KBqQuu.png

Perhaps it would look a bit different if I based it directly on the OT (which I assume TFA did in the first place). I haven’t studied the OT crawls much so I can’t say for sure.

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Sir Ridley said:

Illustrator is probably not a bad idea once you know how to format everything. I did it inside After Effects just so I could tilt and edit the text on top of the real crawl and line everything up.

Yeah, I get that. I’m relying on the dynamic link and have to switch back and forth but ultimately I think it’s worth it.

So, specifics. My text is in a separate 4K composition where I do all the movement (excluding gate weave, getting to that later) and fading of the text. Apparently my focal length is 50mm. Don’t know how I ended up with that number, but it works. Although I have to stretch the text layer about 200%. Maybe 23mm and no stretch works just as well, but this is what I ended up with. 36mm film. Aperture 25,5.

I believe 50mm is the default. It seems to be working fine for you, with the proper adjustments. I’m a bit anal about that kind of stuff, even using 23mm is annoying me just because I know it’s not a very common focal length so maybe doubtful that they would have used that back in the day. But then that gets me wondering, did they shoot the original crawl on 65mm? So should I be factoring that in? It’s a rabbit hole, I guess you ultimately just have to go with what you like.

The angle is -79,8 (for matching the TFA crawl). Since this composition is where I edit the text I also keep a guideline layer to see how wide the paragraphs should be. And on the text layer I have a bunch of effects. A yellow Glow, to make the text a tiny bit thicker. And then a Refine Hard Matte which makes it a bit thicker again and smudges out some details when it goes blurry in the distance. And then a 0,5% Camera Lens Blur which doesn’t do much. And then a Set Matte which adds that little gradient fade in the distance of the text. A Simple Choker which makes the edges a bit less soft and more contrasty. A soft red Drop Shadow which makes the edges of the text warm and cozy. And finally a Fast Blur that just softens everything a bit. Now, all this may sound like nitpicking (and it is), but have a look at this with/without effects image and you can see it’s not completely pointless: https://i.imgur.com/SvKgO9O.jpg

Nah this is good stuff. I guess the angle isn’t really useful because you’re using a different focal length, and I do have a gradient ramp which works in to fade the distant text, but I’ll look into the other stuff for sure.

And then on to the composition where I put everything together. I scale down the text layer to 50%. And then for the gate weave I put a Transform effect on the layer (you could use the built in Transform property, but this way it’s easy to turn on or off). Alt-click the stopwatch for Position and type in the expression: wiggle(6,0.5). This gives the text a slight jittery motion. Aaaand that’s it. Sprinkle some film grain on top if you want.

Yeah I was wondering if you used the wiggle expression. I’ve got the “wiggler” effect on there which I imagine is mostly the same, except it actually generates adjustable keyframes rather than nebulous ones. I didn’t know about the wiggle expression at the time, but since I have I’ve been wonder if it’s worth it to make the switch. I am curious to know how the math involved in that works, mostly just because I wonder if an object will appear to jitter more or less when it is scaled down (this is more for the logo). Although now that I’m thinking about it I should probably add the wiggle effect to the logo comp, rather than the logo itself, so that the wiggle effect won’t scale down with it.

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NeverarGreat said:

That looks really nice. The only thing that looks a bit strange is when the title gets very small in the distance and it starts to look a bit fat and crushed in terms of luminance. The original Trilogy titles (at least the SE versions) pretty much retain their luminance throughout the crawl.
ROTJ

I could be wrong, but I think ROTJ might be literally the only that doesn’t fade as it gets further away.

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I don’t remember, but I probably made a default 50mm camera and then scaled the text instead of adjusting the camera settings. It all worked out in the end, but figuring out the proper camera settings would be the “right” way to do it, for sure. There are a couple of photos of the filming of the OT crawl where you can see the camera and the back lit crawl which could be used for figuring out the dimensions of things.

I think the wiggle scales down so adding it to a comp is a good idea. I also did a logo zoom the other day (I originally used the TFA logo) and I noticed how the speed is hard to get right since it’s not linear, I ended up having to do a lot of keyframes. Perhaps it would be a good idea to make the logo recede in 3D instead of just scaling it down since I assume that was originally done with a camera move as well. It was also tricky to make the logo look right as it scales down, it’s supposed to blur in a certain way, similar to the crawl.

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Sir Ridley said:

I think the wiggle scales down so adding it to a comp is a good idea. I also did a logo zoom the other day (I originally used the TFA logo) and I noticed how the speed is hard to get right since it’s not linear, I ended up having to do a lot of keyframes. Perhaps it would be a good idea to make the logo recede in 3D instead of just scaling it down since I assume that was originally done with a camera move as well. It was also tricky to make the logo look right as it scales down, it’s supposed to blur in a certain way, similar to the crawl.

At the moment I don’t actually remember if I scaled or did it in 3D, but honestly I’m not sure if it’d make that big a difference (probably more so for the lens effects I suppose). That does make me wonder what technique they used for the logo back in the day. Anyway, the trick, with the timing, is to use the ease functions and then mess with the curve on the graph until it’s just right (or in my case, close enough).

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DominicCobb said:

Sir Ridley said:

I think the wiggle scales down so adding it to a comp is a good idea. I also did a logo zoom the other day (I originally used the TFA logo) and I noticed how the speed is hard to get right since it’s not linear, I ended up having to do a lot of keyframes. Perhaps it would be a good idea to make the logo recede in 3D instead of just scaling it down since I assume that was originally done with a camera move as well. It was also tricky to make the logo look right as it scales down, it’s supposed to blur in a certain way, similar to the crawl.

At the moment I don’t actually remember if I scaled or did it in 3D, but honestly I’m not sure if it’d make that big a difference (probably more so for the lens effects I suppose). That does make me wonder what technique they used for the logo back in the day. Anyway, the trick, with the timing, is to use the ease functions and then mess with the curve on the graph until it’s just right (or in my case, close enough).

I’m pretty sure they must have filmed the logo in a similar way to the crawl, by just moving the camera away from it. That would also explain the timing of the motion, since it would appear to move faster when the camera is close and then slower as it gets further away. I’ll have to take a look at the graph, I haven’t learned how to use that properly, haha.

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The logo zoom is indeed odd, as I did one myself using keyframes for V3 of my project. It aliased horribly, given my meager resources and knowledge. I was only able to approximate it.
I am not following much of what you are talking about but I appreciate the efforts and enjoy getting a sense of what goes into this. Makes me really glad I am doing a V5 that’ll include crawls from Ridley.

My stance on revising fan edits.

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Sir Ridley said:

Illustrator is probably not a bad idea once you know how to format everything. I did it inside After Effects just so I could tilt and edit the text on top of the real crawl and line everything up.

So, specifics. My text is in a separate 4K composition where I do all the movement (excluding gate weave, getting to that later) and fading of the text. Apparently my focal length is 50mm. Don’t know how I ended up with that number, but it works. Although I have to stretch the text layer about 200%. Maybe 23mm and no stretch works just as well, but this is what I ended up with. 36mm film. Aperture 25,5.

The angle is -79,8 (for matching the TFA crawl). Since this composition is where I edit the text I also keep a guideline layer to see how wide the paragraphs should be. And on the text layer I have a bunch of effects. A yellow Glow, to make the text a tiny bit thicker. And then a Refine Hard Matte which makes it a bit thicker again and smudges out some details when it goes blurry in the distance. And then a 0,5% Camera Lens Blur which doesn’t do much. And then a Set Matte which adds that little gradient fade in the distance of the text. A Simple Choker which makes the edges a bit less soft and more contrasty. A soft red Drop Shadow which makes the edges of the text warm and cozy. And finally a Fast Blur that just softens everything a bit. Now, all this may sound like nitpicking (and it is), but have a look at this with/without effects image and you can see it’s not completely pointless: https://i.imgur.com/SvKgO9O.jpg

And then on to the composition where I put everything together. I scale down the text layer to 50%. And then for the gate weave I put a Transform effect on the layer (you could use the built in Transform property, but this way it’s easy to turn on or off). Alt-click the stopwatch for Position and type in the expression: wiggle(6,0.5). This gives the text a slight jittery motion. Aaaand that’s it. Sprinkle some film grain on top if you want.

TV’s Frink said:

I thought it was Fake News Gothic.

It’s real. The News, the Gothic. All of it.

Well…this is helpful! What version of after effects did you use? Also I was under the impression you also added a chromatic abrasion, and lense distortion effect to the crawl as well? Ive been tweaking the project I made in blender to mimic Adys crawl, (but his is also more of the PT style) and also give it that OT feel as well. But this helps to see your exact method. I may try and apply some of these principles to my project just so I can make a template that is more universal and accessible to the community.

“You can’t polish a turd. But you can shape it to look like candy.”

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Jackpumpkinhead said:

Sir Ridley said:

Illustrator is probably not a bad idea once you know how to format everything. I did it inside After Effects just so I could tilt and edit the text on top of the real crawl and line everything up.

So, specifics. My text is in a separate 4K composition where I do all the movement (excluding gate weave, getting to that later) and fading of the text. Apparently my focal length is 50mm. Don’t know how I ended up with that number, but it works. Although I have to stretch the text layer about 200%. Maybe 23mm and no stretch works just as well, but this is what I ended up with. 36mm film. Aperture 25,5.

The angle is -79,8 (for matching the TFA crawl). Since this composition is where I edit the text I also keep a guideline layer to see how wide the paragraphs should be. And on the text layer I have a bunch of effects. A yellow Glow, to make the text a tiny bit thicker. And then a Refine Hard Matte which makes it a bit thicker again and smudges out some details when it goes blurry in the distance. And then a 0,5% Camera Lens Blur which doesn’t do much. And then a Set Matte which adds that little gradient fade in the distance of the text. A Simple Choker which makes the edges a bit less soft and more contrasty. A soft red Drop Shadow which makes the edges of the text warm and cozy. And finally a Fast Blur that just softens everything a bit. Now, all this may sound like nitpicking (and it is), but have a look at this with/without effects image and you can see it’s not completely pointless: https://i.imgur.com/SvKgO9O.jpg

And then on to the composition where I put everything together. I scale down the text layer to 50%. And then for the gate weave I put a Transform effect on the layer (you could use the built in Transform property, but this way it’s easy to turn on or off). Alt-click the stopwatch for Position and type in the expression: wiggle(6,0.5). This gives the text a slight jittery motion. Aaaand that’s it. Sprinkle some film grain on top if you want.

TV’s Frink said:

I thought it was Fake News Gothic.

It’s real. The News, the Gothic. All of it.

Well…this is helpful! What version of after effects did you use? Also I was under the impression you also added a chromatic abrasion, and lense distortion effect to the crawl as well? Ive been tweaking the project I made in blender to mimic Adys crawl, (but his is also more of the PT style) and also give it that OT feel as well. But this helps to see your exact method. I may try and apply some of these principles to my project just so I can make a template that is more universal and accessible to the community.

I have the Adobe CC subscription, so it’s “the latest one”, not sure about the exact version number. It should be doable in most versions though. I didn’t add chromatic aberrasion and no lense distortion other than what the standard AE camera produces. I could make an After Effects template as well.

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Sir Ridley said:
I could make an After Effects template as well.

A template would be a godsend in the coming months. I can already see myself trying to make my own crawl, spending days tinkering with After Effects only to have a crawl that’s little more than plain paragraphs with yellow font.

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Sir Ridley said:

The fatness and fading into the distance are closely based on the TFA crawl. https://i.imgur.com/3KBqQuu.png

Perhaps it would look a bit different if I based it directly on the OT (which I assume TFA did in the first place). I haven’t studied the OT crawls much so I can’t say for sure.

I guess it’s not a thickness issue so much as it is a luminance issue.
http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/01CNNN8U
In the original, you can see a large variance in luminance levels across the letters, making them pop a bit (notice how much contrast there is at the S in ‘Awakens’):
Original
In your version, it’s like the brightness of the title is clipped.
Ridley
That’s probably because it’s fading out at that point, but I wonder if there’s another blending mode that will allow it to fade out while retaining more of the contrast.

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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Sir Ridley said:

DominicCobb said:

Sir Ridley said:

I think the wiggle scales down so adding it to a comp is a good idea. I also did a logo zoom the other day (I originally used the TFA logo) and I noticed how the speed is hard to get right since it’s not linear, I ended up having to do a lot of keyframes. Perhaps it would be a good idea to make the logo recede in 3D instead of just scaling it down since I assume that was originally done with a camera move as well. It was also tricky to make the logo look right as it scales down, it’s supposed to blur in a certain way, similar to the crawl.

At the moment I don’t actually remember if I scaled or did it in 3D, but honestly I’m not sure if it’d make that big a difference (probably more so for the lens effects I suppose). That does make me wonder what technique they used for the logo back in the day. Anyway, the trick, with the timing, is to use the ease functions and then mess with the curve on the graph until it’s just right (or in my case, close enough).

I’m pretty sure they must have filmed the logo in a similar way to the crawl, by just moving the camera away from it. That would also explain the timing of the motion, since it would appear to move faster when the camera is close and then slower as it gets further away. I’ll have to take a look at the graph, I haven’t learned how to use that properly, haha.

I’ll post a clip of what I have when I get the chance, the graph is really helpful.

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Here’s a comparison of my logo and the original TFA logo. Note that I purposefully made mine bigger at the first frame (and also it seems to me like TFA’s logo and some of it’s text isn’t quite centered). And I’ve yet to put effects on.

Anyway, this is what you can do with the easy ease and graph functions, using only two keyframes total (one at the start and one at the end):

https://vimeo.com/253562393

Not perfect, but good enough for me.