I don't know the answer James, but that watermellon is about to take one on the chin!

ChrisL

Imagine all the extra production staff and artists you'd need to hire to make a "fully animated feature font" that runs for 90 minutes! In the future there will be more than movies made about fonts --- "feature fonts" will rival movies for audience share.

The task of developing an animated font format is comparable to the difficulty experienced by a small cat rolling a large watermelon ashore on the Ivory Coast.

Typography will become a performance art and typographers will become more like actors. The really experienced type designers will have to be like film directors.

"mew"

j a m e s

Will the animated fonts of the future type themselves?
What about spell checking? (Sounds like magic.)

-=®=-

mew...that was what I had in mind---something quite dramatic and theatrical. Type will become a performance art. Skilled calligraphers will rule the day!

I already bought up all the commercial rights to the best "motion picture font" titles. I used a Variety annual and worked out every possible name in advance, adapting existing Hollywood movie properties to typo lingua franca. My producer friend Amanda is looking to sign Nick Shinn to direct The Shinning, with Jill Bell and Ronna Penner attached for lead roles. I want to get Stuart Sandler for special visual effects.

Typophiles are invited to give their own "witty and thought-provoking" answers to the wacky questions presented in this thread. Replace the repeated dummy text "I don't mind as long..." with something you "most like".

j a m e s

Sample Motion Picture Font Quiz

1) What features would you most like to see in the animated font format of the future?

2) Should motion picture fonts have sound? Maybe that will come later.

3) In the early days of silent motion picture fonts, Ray Larabie had big hits with which font comedies?
(a) The Bold Rush
(b) A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Font Forum
(c) Take The Money Fonts and Run
(d) Eth Girls are Easy

4) Which prodigiously talented female lettering artist of our time would you have make The Caron Carpenter Story into a feature length font?

5) Which legendary type designers would you sign for The Caslons of War? My money is on Gerald Giampa to direct, with Sumner Stone on second unit and Brian J. Bonislawskyi directing special visual effects.

6) The Caslons of War won oscars for which categories?
(a) Least Contrived Art Direction
(b) Best Supporting Serif
(c) Sturdiest Crossbar in a lead role
(d) Worst Ink Detail in a Historical Font

7) Most of the money in motion picture font production wiil be in commercial lettering capable of block-buster style special effects and tranformations. Unlike feature length fonts, advertising lettering will only run a few minutes and be cheaply produced from stock libraries. The lucrative Adobe stock libraries are culled from which feature length fonts?
(a) Futura Cop
(b) The Ball Terminator
(c) Children of the Kern
(d) Hrant & the Masters of the Univers

8) When riots brought shooting of the first 3D feature font Dial M for Murga to a halt, the font's director Harold Lohner was heard to mutter which exasperated turn of phrase?
(a) Oh brother where art Downer?
(b) Die deresis die!
(c) Please don't eat the accents.
(d) Whatever happened to Baby J?

9) Which gritty motion picture font about the big apple won the 2034 academy award for Best Inktraps?
(a) Manhatten(schweiler)
(b) The Side Bearings of New York
(c) Font Apache the Bronx
(d) The Purple Rows of Biro

10) I've used up two fonty-flavoured film titles on one font already. The ill-fated Citizen Kern had to be rechristened Midnight Kernboy to avoid trademark conflict with Zuzana Licko's Citizen. Name one other font christened after a motion picture film that had to be remonikered because of trademark conflict with Berthold's City font.

j a m e s

James,

That is just a stitch! I haven't such a good laugh in ages :-D

ChrisL

Hee-hee! There's a long story behind all these feature font titles. Check your email account for Typophile "contact". You have won a Sentinel Type font as my way of saying thanks for your sterling company. I need to know where to send it.

j a m e s

Can Neville Brody's hair come too?!

Too funny, James! I once had a dog that loved watermelon. :-)

Sharon

Can Neville Brody’s hair come too?!

LOL. And Fred Goudy's false teeth. Claude Garamont's shoes.

j a m e s

Seriously though. Neville Brody has luscious hair. Whenever I'm stuck in a design dilemma I just think to myself, "What would Neville Brody's hair do in this situation?"

The hair concept doesn't work very well for me. When I think about my hair, my mind just draws a blank ;-)

ChrisL

Thanks, boys -- best laugh I've had all week. ;-)

Chris: just because you lack it, doesn't mean you can't dream about it....

"Mm! My hair's getting good in the back" --- F.Z

Chris -- old typesetter's aphorism: "It is easier for a folically-challenged man to pass thru the eye of a binocular g than it is for a quoin monkey to---than it is for a quoin monkey to."

...stuck in a design dilemma...“What would Neville Brody’s hair do in this situation?”

Neville Brody's hair, being prodigiously talented and luscious, would probably go out to the local Cinefont-o-theque for inspiration and watch Cedialls in the Mist: the Dianne Fussy Story". ;^)

j a m e s

More fun than a barrel of quoin monkeys :-)

ChrisL

Cedillas in the Mist. Drat. Double drat!

j a m e s