FILM PROLOGUES

VISUAL LANGUAGE

Unit 45 – Type and Letterforms

TASK 5:

Karin Fong

Prologue Films

submarinechannel.com

"Enchanted" 
Movie end sequence: Garson Yu (USA)

http://www.watchthetitles.com/articles/00139-Enchanted

       Enchanted is a Disney movie, part animated and part live action about a princess from an enchanted kingdom that is transported somehow to the real world, to be more specific to New York City. This title sequence has plenty of fairy tales characteristics: there is a story book that closes in the end of the movie, right before the title sequence appears, with the quote reading "the end" in a sweet script style type made of little stars. The book is similar to old story books that we can see in ancient library shelves and also in the beginning and/or in end of a fairytale animated movie. When the book closes, we see the title of the movie in the hard cover of the book, with serif style letter forms relating to old tales books. This kind of letter forms used to be painted by hand in the medieval times.

       
      Then there is a close up in the embellishments of the book cover and the titles start to appear with a decorative Art Nouveau font in a serif style used for the main credits with beautiful embellishments around the typography that invokes associations of romance and fairytale. The embellishments grow from the first letters of the first name of each person. This again comes from the idea that we have of a medieval times book where the firsts letters of each chapter were big and all ornamented and painted by hand. A good examples of this can be seen in old bibles and tales books. We also can see that the embellishments have plenty of natural elements such as leaves and vine leaves that is also a characteristic of a medieval times in which the wine was a noble beverage therefore the vine leaves appear various times in books of those time. 

       The illustrations were hand-drawn and they have a watercolour look to hints the iconic fairytale world of imagery and create a playful narrative that blends elements from the film with broader fairytale symbolism with also real world elements like a brief case (at 1:26) and the city silhouette (at 1:03). But i believe that the lettering were manipulated digitally using image editing programs such as photo shop and animated together with all the background illustrations.

       

       The pastel coloured and the "girlie" look that the illustrations and the lettering have catches the attention of a very young audience, specially girls that believes and likes fairy tales and princess story but also parents that enjoy watching this kind of movies with their children. This is a family movie where the world of the children meets the real world of the grown ups.

"Cargo – Innocence Lost"

movie title sequence: Designer Maxim Ivanov (Bulgaria)

http://www.watchthetitles.com/articles/0033-Cargo_Innocence_Lost

      In this opening sequence the titles look like they are some kind of a box around the actress and the font of the titles are similar to scratches, as if someone is scratching the wall or door trying to escape of something. This gives the idea that the woman is maybe being kept inside of a room or a box. Also, the woman it half naked which enforce the feeling of loneliness. The name of the movie is "CARGO" as in something being transported or shipped, with all this evidences is obvious that the movie is about people being shipped around the world as cargo, expectantly women as sex slaves. Human traffic is a very common crime in the modern society we live in.

       The letter forms are displayed type giving the idea of scratches made by human nails when scratching the walls or doors trying to escape something. I think the type was made digitally using editing programs for example Photoshop. The colour of the type is white to contrast with the dark place around the actress.

       This title sequence is mysterious and catches very well the audience specially the woman and people aware of this crime, we can see the woman in the title sequence is suffering and the scratched letter forms boxing her, give us the feeling of wanting to help the poor woman but we can´t so we stay watching what will happen next hoping someone who can will.

"Juno"

Jenny Lee + Gareth Smith, Shadowman Studio Graphics

http://www.watchthetitles.com/articles/0069-Juno

       This movie portraits the actions of an independent-minded teenager confronting an unplanned pregnancy and the subsequent events that put pressures of adult life onto her. faced with an unplanned pregnancy, an offbeat young woman makes an unusual decision regarding her unborn child.

        The movie starts out with a real life image of the protagonist walking down street but then there is a transition and the background changes to drawings similar to those of a teenager and this is where the first letter forms appear: The letters are coloured in a bright colours and are untidily made as if they were drawn by amateurs with feltips pens. The text is in Sans Serif style with a clear attempt at 3D drawing. The colourful cartoonish letters fit perfectly against the dim coloured (also cartoonist) background in which they run in.

       Immediately the audience is given a hind that this movie will be about a teenagers life, since the colouring of the font is made with pens you could find in any secondary schools' classroom the audience can also induce the movie will be related to this day and age, and possibly part of the movie may have some relation education and/or studies. There is some cleverly done interaction between the font and the images in the background, for example Michael Cera's name next to the guitar, where in the movie he'll be the guitar playing lover boy.

The letter forms seem to have be drawn and coloured in by hand like some of the images running behind it. We can also see some of the background was made with photocopies and photographs and put together like a collage. In the end the entire thing was scanned and digitally edited with image editing programs and animation programs to give all the animated effects

        The type, font, and bright colouring give the sense of a comic book or even a colouring book, this help young adults relate better with the sequence of the movie.

The clear target audience is modern day teenagers, in particular female teens. Raising awareness of the common criss of teenage pregnancy.

"Final Destination 5"

movie title sequence: STEVEN QUALE, NEW LINE CINEMA

http://prologue.com/media/film/projects/final-destination-5

       This is the opening sequence of the thriller movie Final Destination 5. the lettering apear straight away after warned brothers' logo intro. The effect used makes it seem as if the letters are part of a moving transparent glass, which is smashed by the fall curious items coming from behind the glass. Making references to the death of characters in previous movies. For example the explosion of the notorious air plane which started the enterprise. These are all 21^st century items this shows the audience more or less the idea of the time and location of the movie.

       The type is in bold, Sans Serif style with a constant beige colouring which contrasts with the black background. The tittles are smaller than the name of the actors and producers. The effects which make it seem as if the words are shattering are manipulated digitally, but with basis on the recorded breaking of the glass.

       The explosion and destructions of the tittle sequences gives the idea that this will be an action based movie. Also, the text is in caps lock and this gives the idea of screaming or immediate urgency which will help catch the attention of it's target audience, people who enjoy thrill and mystery.

EVALUATION - Project: “Street Style Illustrations”

EVALUATION

Unit 45: Graphic Image Making

Student: Ana Vieira

Project:  “Street Style Illustrations”

This Project was very enthusiastic for me. I really started to know more about illustration and the most I learned more I get in love with it. I also enjoy fashion so combine both parts was very fun for me.

Since the beginning I had an idea of what we had to do and how to do it by seeing the 2^nd year previous work.

We first had some fabric draw exercises, where we had practice drawing fabric and his folders and next we had body proportions exercise, where we had to measure each other’s according with the head size and then draw the other person. These exercises were very useful to me because I have some issues when I have to draw fabric and people. Sometimes is difficult to me get the texture of the cloths and the proportions of the body.

After this we started to see what illustration means and we started to research blogs about street style that Sally gave to us and choose 4 blogs. Of each blog we had to choose 4 pictures that we most like and found interesting.

We used these pictures to train various techniques that we saw from illustrators. First we did a simple pencil drawing with shadows of 2 of these pictures to practice drawing the clothes textures and folders.

Each class we looked to the work of 3 illustrators and then we practice their techniques and methods painting or tracing one of the pictures that we found on the blogs.

First we look at Agnes Decorchelle (with her detail colour pencils drawings), Andy Warhol (with his simple watercolour paintings where he just focus in the clothes and in the accessories) and Zoe O’Ferral (with the almost cartoony draws using pens to give de fabric textures.

Agnes Dercochelle

Andy Warhol

Zoe O'Ferrall

Than we look at David Downton (his beautiful work he uses water colour do draw the basic shapes spending more time in the model face and in some details), Julie Verhoeven (her work is more from the imaginary with a lot of extra elements that she add like circles, water drips, etc.) and last but not least Michael Roberts (who uses coloured paper cut outs to make their African inspired illustrations).

David Downton

Julie Verhoeven

Michael Roberts

David Downton (picture of his work in the right) was my favourite artist of all. His work is so elegant and beautiful. I love the big watercolour areas giving the shape of the outfit and the detailed faces. His work was my principal inspiration for my final piece.

For the final piece we had to research again in the blogs 3 sequences of 4 pictures that had some in common, like a colour, a piece of the outfit, the style etc.

The first sequence that I made was in common the colour blue, the second one had the colour yellow and skirts in common, and the third one, the one that I choose for my final piece, had he colour red and patterns in common.

After we choose de three sequences we had to make thumbnail sketches of the sequences thinking what materials and technique we would be using and then choose which one we would decide to do it.

I choose the third one because I love the colour red and because I thought that the patterns could be a interesting part of my illustrations.

I knew that I wanted to use watercolours in the outfit, inspired my David Downton. Then I thought that the area in focus would be the outfit and not the faces or the rest of the model, so I decided to make just the outline, with a black pen, of the face and the rest of the body and accessories of the model, like shoes bags, etc., this was inspired by the technique of Zoe O’Ferrall. I also wanted to give a unique touch in my illustration, something different of the others, I thought “why not to give some texture?” so I            used the Michael Roberts technique and I cut out black paper to make the patterns of the models.

When I started doing the final piece I realized that i didn’t liked some of the pictures very much, and the result wasn’t what I expected so I decide do go and research for more pictures and I’ve changed 2 of the 4 that I had. I made news thumbnail sketches always keeping the same idea of techniques and materials.

In my final piece there is two picture with spots (made by a hole puncher) and two pictures with stripes. I’m really pleased with my work, I think the result was excellent and the paper detail is very different.

In the final stage of this project I was in a rush because in the end of the Christmas term I lost my sketchbook in the tube and the next they I had to travel to Portugal. During this time I didn’t made much from what I had to do in the graphics book so when I returned from Portugal, 2 weeks later, I went to pick up my book and start to do all in a bit of rush but I think I done everything that I needed but if I had more time I would loved to do the artist transcripts in my book, I left the pages in blank so in my own time I will start to do it.

ILUSTRATION ARTISTS: Michael Roberts

             Michael Roberts is a British Fashion journalist, illustrator and photographer born in 1948. He studied fine art and graphic design before moving into fashion and now he lives in New York City, USA, and is the Fashion and style director of Vanity Fair magazine. He already worked as fashion director in others magazines as the New Yorker, Tatler and also the British Vogue. He also made illustrations for Vanity Fair, L'Uomo Vogue; British, Italian, Japanese, French, American and many others Vogue magazines. Additionally, he has four books published of illustrations and photography.

             

             His illustrations are made of collage using coloured paper, illustrating, generally, the African culture and African influences. With warm colours, leaves, grass and animal patterns he make reference to the African landscapes. He does not use to much detail just basic shapes to give a perfect and simple form of the models, clothes and accessories. He also adds some 3D effects, for example, in the bottom of the picture in the right we can see the grass coming out of the flat collage.

Artist Work:

Vincent Van Gogh

57.0 x 43.5 cm
Saint-Rémy,  September  1889
Washington: National Gallery of Art

                 I chose to write about this particular Portrait because in Portugal I made a copy of this work with oil pastels in A4 size, however I never did any research about the artist or the painting, and I never did a analysis about this work and I wanted to write about it because since I did the transcription the expression on his face in this portrait.

This is a painting, made with oil on canvas. This is a side view, in other words, we can see his profile. I think the artist spontaneously panted directly on the canvas, without any previous sketch. We can see rough and thick brush strokes in the same style of the famous paint The Starry Night (June 1889, Saint-Rémy) on the rigth, of this same Artist, we can see this mainly in the background and in his shoulder.

The left side of the paint is darker than the right side. We can see the light coming from the top right side, giving the idea of a lamp that could possibly be next to him or in the celling. We can see this by the light colours in his face and the white strokes in his shoulder.                                                                                                                                          

In this picture we can see a great variety of blues and violets. The blue emerge from the dark centre in the background like an abstract environment that surrounds him and the colours and tones of the hair and beard resembles to the moon in the The Starry Night paint. The background with warm violets; the cold blues on his clothes; the dark area around his head like a halo; the aggressive brush strokes; and the smile, that seems, to me, an ironic smile, gives a mood and atmosphere difficult to explain in words, almost suffocating, as if it was painted in a rush or despair.

Vincent Van Gogh, born in 30 March 1853, is Dutch impressionist (*) artist that is known by his landscapes and portraits works with his strong brush strokes. The Starry Night and Sunflowers are two of his famous paintings. After years of painful anxiety and frequent bouts of mental illness, he died at the age of 37 in June of 1889, from a gunshot wound.

(*) Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists. The name of the style is derived from the title of a Claude Monet work, Impression, soleil levant (Impression, Sunrise),  is a known style by the vivid colours, thick application of paint, distinctive brush strokes, and real-life subject matter. Examples of impressionist artists are Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Auguste Renoir and many others.

TYPOGRAPHY AND LETTER FORMS HISTORY

What is Typography?

Typography is…
From the Greek words τύπος(typos) = form and γραφή(graphy) = writing)

   Is the art of use types and letterforms making language visible. This involves the selection of typefaces, point size, line length, leading and many other things. Today typography has been put into motion to add emotion to communication in films, television and internet.

  Typography has been traditionally associated with design and , in particular, with the printing industry. The word “typography” is increasingly used o refer to the arrangement of any written material and is no longer restricted to the work of a typographer.

  There are many  ways of presenting written language  using technologies such as the printing press, text message, e-mail, ink-jet printer and even the standard typewriter.  Typography an writing have always been related: typography as the professional practice and discipline that mediates between the content of the message and the readers understanding. Therefore ,to understand the grammar of typography we must have the knowledge and understanding of language and how it is adapted to different functions and contexts.

History...

    To the pictograms on the walls of caves to the stone tables and  the papyrus to paper.

Was in the Middle East, about 4000 B.C. that the first civilizations started to write on clay. Then the Egyptians fond the papyrus plant that they used to make sandals and cloths. They discovered, in about 3500 B.C.,  that they could use the pith of these plants to make a kind of  paper.

  They cut the pith in little pieces and these were split with a sharp knife into very thin strips as a broad as possible. These were laid close together vertically on a board and were covered with a other layer placed horizontally. The strips were moistened with glue, pressed under weights or in a press, and dried in the sun. then they smoothed the surface with a pumice stone  and coated with a thin of flour water and vinegar and pressed again.

  Then, in mid-15th century Europe, the German goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg invented  the press printing and movable type.

  The typographical principle, that is the creation of a complete text by reusing identical characters, was first realized in the Phaistos Disc, an enigmatic Minoan print item from Crete, Greece, which dates between 1850 and 1600 BC.

Movable Type...

      Movable type is the system of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document normally individual letters or punctuation. The world's first known movable-type system for printing was created in China around 1040 A.D. by Bi Sheng, but was in middle of 15th century, more exactly in 1450, Johannes Gutenberg created a movable type sistem in Europe. The pieces are designed and then cut them out in metal pieces to being used when print pressed. This way the printed text could have designed letters (typefaces).

Printing Press...

    In 1440, German inventor Johannes Gutenberg invented a printing press process that, with refinements and increased mechanization, remained the principal means of printing until the late 20th century. The inventor's method of printing from movable type, including the use of metal molds and alloys, a special press, and oil-based inks, allowed for the first time the mass production of printed books.

    Printing press is a machine that transfers lettering or images by contact with various forms of inked surface onto paper or similar material fed into it in various ways The device is used for printing many copies of a text on paper.

Capital Letters...

     Capital letters are use since the begin of the writing. We can see this in antique and important books like bibles, where the first letters are bigger then the others and with a lot of embellishment.  

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ON THE RIGHT: A close up of the illuminated letter P in the 1407AD Latin Bible on display in Malmesbury Abbey, Wiltshire, England. It was hand written in Belgium, by Gerard Brils, for reading aloud in a monastery.


     

Bible of Gutenberg...

       The Gutenberg Bible (printed by Johannes Gutenberg at Mainz, Germany in 14-5) was the first book ever printed from movable type and the first book produced on a printing press. It marked the start of the "Gutenberg Revolution" and the age of the printed book in the west. Forty-eight copies survive and they are considered by many sources to be the most valuable books in the world, even though a complete copy has not been sold since 1978. 

ON THE LEFT: Kings Salomon appears in the illuminated initial, witch was painted by hand.

What are typefaces?

Typefaces are...

The style and design of the letters.

The most famous are the Times New Roman, Arial and Verdana. 

Typefaces Anatomy and Terminologies

X-heigh...

       X-height is the distance between the baseline of a line of type and the top of the main body of the lower-case letters. Typefaces with large x-heights tend to have small ascenders & descenders and Typefaces with small x-heights have large ones. However each type has the same horizontal body size width.

Ascender...

     An Ascender is the part of a lower-case letter that rises above the main body or x-height of the letter.

Descender...

    A Descender is the part of a lower-case letter that drops below the main body  or x-height of the letter

Weight...

•The weight of a typeface or font is the width of the font stroke (or character lines).

•Common names for weight include light, medium and bold.

•Thin and heavy weights in extended text are generally less readable

•weights (bold) are best used for emphasis.

•A whole page of bold typeface can be difficult to read.

•Also, don't forget to consider your target audience. Young children respond well to bold weight , as long as it is well spaced.

Serifs…

•Is used in print products like Newspapers, books and magazines .

•They are usually (but not always) used for the long blocks of Text.

•Many experts consider that Serif fonts assist legibility of small sized print on paper (but not on screen).

•Serifs help the eye move from letter to letter. 

•An example of Serif typface is Times New Roman.

Sans-serifs…

•Sans serif typefaces are also used in print products but more likely for headlines, mastheads, captions and short pieces of small text. Very rarely are long blocks of text sans serif.

•Sans serif typefaces are very common in advertising, on the internet, on phones.

•On screen, small point text is nowadays nearly always sans serif.

•On screen sans-serif text is more readable than serif text.

•An example of a typeface invented for screen use is Verdana.

Slab-Serif…

A happy medium

•The slab serifs are the right choice if you want to mix the classic touch of a serif with the freshness of sans-serif and it will help your design stand out from the crowd.

Leading lights

•Slab serifs that include light weights can be used for body copy as an interesting alternative to serifs. The leading will need to be expanded to balance the extra detail at smaller point sizes.

Use your space wisely

•Proper spacing and kerning are required. Slabs usually have pronounced serif structures that demand a certain level of attention due to the negative shapes they create. Being aware of the sort of slab being used in context will help you space it accordingly.

An example is Blackoak Std. 

Display…

     Display type is what you notice first on the printed page. It has character, it sets tone and it’s big – sometimes really big.

•Clarity is vital

“How well does the typeface read at the intended size(s) and distance(s)? Ask someone else to look at it. Can they actually read it? Just because a typeface ‘looks’ cool doesn’t mean it will ‘read’ cool.” – Neil Summerour

•Character-forming

“A good display font gives a more playful, daring, and emotional feel to your design. If you are frightened by these words then don’t use one. Use a display font in the same way you would add spice to your food.” – Oded Ezer

•Mixing it up

“Try selecting a font that is familiar to a specific use or type of design, and use it for something completely different. For instance, select a font that is more familiar in pub windows and try it for an exhibition.” – Jeff Knowles

•An example is Broadway 

Script…

No body text

•Never try to use a script for any running text, as readability will suffer. If you want a feel that emulates a script font for running text, a good quality italic font will always be a better option.

Don’t shout

•Generally don’t set words entirely in capital letters when using a script. Most script fonts are meant to be used in either title/proper mode or in lower case only. All-caps script will really harm the readability.

Use sparingly

•Only use scripts as headlines or as ‘accents’. The main exception to the rule might be where a script is intended to look like handwriting or invitations – but even then it should be used sparingly.

An example is Kunstler Script 

Kerning...

     Kerning is the spacing between letters

Tight Kerning

Normal Kerning

           LooseKerning

Emphasis...

Leading...

The space between the lines.

History of the Alphabet

 The Sumerians...

                Experiment with writing was brought to us by the Sumerians more than 4000 years B.C we call it Cuneiform. Not as scribbles representative of letters which then builds an image in our head, like in our day of age but as pictograms - pictures representing words. The early cuneiform comprised some 1,500 pictograms.

  The word for bird, for example, existed at first as a simple pictorial representation of a bird.

The oldest pictograph are known on a limestone table which was found at Kish on the river  Euphrates and has been dated at about 3500 B.C.

Sumerian Cuneiform Script Clay tablet

The Egyptians...

   The Egyptians developed a similar system of pictograms, one that many of us are familiar with. Hieroglyphic inscriptions (literally sacred carving), like Cuneiform started out as pictograms, but later .those same pictures were also used to represent speech sounds.

Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs and silhouettes on papyrus

Wadi el-Hol...

    In 1999 was discovered two inscriptions in Wadi el-Hol What means that rather then the early Semitic alphabet being developed in their homeland of Syria-Palestine, it was instead developed by the Semitic-speaking people then living in Egypt.

  By about 1600 BC in the region between the two dominant writing systems of the time, Cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs, we see the appearance of other alphabets like Ugaritic script (14th century BC) that developed in what is today Syria. The Ugaritic script employs 30 simplified cuneiform signs. And thus begins the story of the alphabet.

Phoenicians – Syria 1050 BC

The Japanese and the Persians...

In time, it became apparent that a written language with signs that represent sounds require fewer characters than a language in which a sign stands for a thing or an idea.

  The Japanese first stumble upon syllabic writing, where signs represent different writing, this is still used to date used today. This was then developed by the Persians and other. At last, after centuries of experiment, came alphabetic writing, which only needed round thirty letters to write down any word or sound in the spoken language.

  This is why, in our current alphabet we use 26 letters (whereas the Greek only 23 and were able to create some of the most outstanding literature the world has ever known). However, the Chinese, for example, have to learn thousands of characters in order to express themselves.

  This technique is used in various languages, such as, Greek, Russian, Arabic, Urdu, Hindi and Indonesian but ultimately all true alphabets follow the same method; a small number of signs more or less phonetic, which can be put together in groups to represent all the sounds and words in language.

  

ON THE TOP: A page from bronze movable-type

 book by Hua Sui, printed in 1490

Ancient Examples

Rome 120 AD

Ancient Greece – 2200 years ago

Irish Hand written Bible  750 AD

LEXICAL SERIES "EA A NÂQU", TABLET 7, GIVING FIRST THE SUMERIAN PRONUNCIATION OF A SIGN, THEN THE SUMERIAN SIGN ITSELF, AND THEN THE BABYLONIAN TRANSLATION OF IT

ISIDORUS HISPALENSIS: ETYMOLOGIARUM SIVE ORIGINUM, BOOK 20, WITH LIST OF CHAPTERS

JIYUN BUKAN; THE MOST COMPREHENSIVE EARLY CHINESE RHYMING DICTIONARY, CONTAINING NO LESS THAN 53,525 CHARACTERS, ARRANGED BY THE SYSTEM OF FINAL SOUNDS. COMPILED BY DING DU AND OTHERS

Egyptian hieroglyphs

KOJIKI, RECORDS OF ANCIENT MATTERS; FURUKOTOFUMI,
SACRED BOOK OF SHINTO