Font Research and Drafts

An important feature I am including in my film is the text included throughout which will portray the dialogue of each actor/actress to an audience, due to the film being silent. This is an important and well known feature of most silent black and white films and therefore, there are certain codes and conventions which must be followed. I have researched a number of films which include this style of portraying dialogue to an audience, included a film dircted by Charlie Chaplin -  a main insperation for my own film.

The text included in Charlie Chaplin’s ‘City Lights’ is very simple thin styled writing, connotating the light heartedness and fun nature of the film and the actual dialogue (and it’s fun loving theme) that is being portrayed to an audience. Additionally, the use of the open and closed speech marks visually shows an audience instantly that the text is speech from the actor/actress who has just visually (not audibly) spoken in the film, instead of there being confusion between the text possibly being a title included in the film. The background image which the text is layered over has a smokey black and grey texture, which look familiar to a piece of artist's crete/cartridge paper.

Jess Robbin’s ‘The Lucy Dog’ (famously known for the first appearance of the comedy duo Laurel and Hardy) title font is very thick and bold – this grabbing an audience’s attention in a way that that this text is obviously the title of a film as opposed to dialogue/name of the setting/etc. The full title is in capital letters, and each letter is perfectly aligned with the letter next to/either side of each individual letter. Similarly to the text included in Charlie Chaplin's City Lights, the background which the text is layered on has a smokey black and grey texture, which look familiar to a piece of artist's crete/cartridge paper. This being a similar feature which is included in a lot of silent films.

The text used in Fred Guiol’s ‘45 Minutes From Hollywood’ starring Hardy from the comedy due Laurel and Hardy is very different from the fonts used in the previous film fonts that I have researched. The font has been specifically chosen to connote the Hollywood element/theme of the film, using a well recognised style of font which is well recognised importantly by an audience. The background however, follows the similar connotations of the past two previous films I have researched, the background which the text is layered on has a smokey black and grey texture, which look familiar to a piece of artist's crete/cartridge paper. This being a similar feature which is included in a lot of silent films. The difference between this film's text shot and the two previous film's text shots I have analysed, the text has a boarder going all the way around it. This border looks a like a 'fancy' wooden photo frame without the glass or a photo, but instead the film's title. This, I think, is done to add importance to the title as well as making it clear to the audience the importance of this text by singling it out from other text included in the film.

This fan made silent black and white recreation of the famous film ‘Star Wars’ also follows the codes and conventions of 1920’s silent black and white films. The text used by the director is quite fancy and sophisticated looking due to the swirls. I believe however, this is not done purposely as this is an amateur made video that looks as if he has not

My Findings

I have found from my research that similar features can be seen with regards to the font and layout/appearance of the text included in silent black and white films. I have found that the background layer of the text shots are all based around the visual artistic image of crete/cartridge paper. Additionally, I have seen that the font used for the dialogue of the actor/actress speaking in the film is very different to the font used for the title of the film - this purposely done so that the audience can tell the difference between texts. Also, I have seen that specific style of fonts can portray a specific connotation to an audience like the importance of the text, the theme of the film, etc.

For these reasons, I have decided that I will style the font of my text shots around the theme of Italy where my film is set, this theme being shown to an audience through the connotations that the actual font will portray to them. The font I have chosen to use to do this, is from http://www.dafont.com/, a website which features a large number of useable fonts. The website which features a search bar in which (when I was reseraching usable fonts) I typed in key words relating to Italy to find fonts that I could possibly use. The key words I searched were: Italy, Italian and Pasta.
 

The font I have researched and decided to use for my text shots is called Italian Cursive, 16th c (as exampled below). I think that the font well connotates an Italian theme without being to 'in your face' obvious and is easily readable. Additionally, the font appears to look fairly old fashioned (obviously due to the font being created around the font used in the 16th century) and therefore, fits in with the time period my film is set in. 
 

For the title of my film, I decided to look on a different website as I couldn’t find a font which I felt I wanted to used on http://www.dafont.com/. The website I found to research a font for my title is www.fonts-lab.com, a website which includes a small number of free downloadable fonts. Luckily, I found a font that fitted the connotations which I felt were needed to be included for the title font in the section of the website which includes free downloadable text fonts.