Movie poster credits font (quick solution: it's Univers 39 Thin Ultra Condensed)

[Robert Knecht Schmidt]

For years I've been looking for the thin, tall font used for the credits at the bottom of one-sheet movie posters and in film trailers. I've come across innumerable bad approximations and other inadequate suggestions ("Just squeeze Arial thinner!"), but I've never hit the jackpot. I thought I'd try this forum since there are a lot of other editors here. I'm looking for a TrueType font. Any suggestions?

Also looking for the "got milk?" font--again, I'm not interested in "close-but-no-cigar" imitations.

Thanks!

[Keith Loh]

Got Milk font:
http://www.funkyfella.com/gotmilkfont.html

CgPhenix American

I've seen Garamond used in a lot of posters. Univers too. Don't forget that when you are placing type you often do change the width of the line. It may not just be in the font.

[Keith Loh]

http://www.fontpool.com/fonts/bitstream/empire.html

According to a few pages I've found, it's "Empire"

Good question. I've been wondering that myself.

[Robert Knecht Schmidt]

CGPhenixAmerican is almost a perfect replica of the "got milk?" font. Anyway, it's the best I've seen so far, and the web page with the comparisons is really great. Thanks Keith!

The Empire font is a "close but no cigar" match for the movie poster font. The movie poster font has strokes of uniform width. Also, look at the way the middle stroke on a capital N connects at the bottom of the third stroke. In the actual movie poster font, it connects at the very bottom. In Empire it connect about a third way up. Also, in the movie poster font, the capital A has a sharp top, not rounded as in Empire. Another font commonly suggested, but also not a match, is the SFMoviePoster font offered by the now-defunct shyfonts.com. Garamond and Univers are not even close to being matches. Univers Condensed is just yuck: it condenses by pushing the letters into each other! Raleigh Gothic RR Condensed is the closest I've ever found, but the round edges of it's C's, O's, and P's are a tad too square.
http://www.fontpool.com/fonts/redrooster/raleigh_gothic_rr.html

A common remark I see is, "There is no one movie poster font, every movie has a different font." It is true that some films choose a different font for a different effect. Others, I suspect, especially DV movies and independent films that can't afford professional one-sheet layout services, settle for an inaccurate clone. But THE movie poster font really is ubiquitous on one-sheets. (I could come up with a million examples of its use, but I'll give just one, MEMENTO. If you have the older DVD, it's on the back.)

'The' movie poster font is such a beautiful design, extraordinarily simple. It cannot result from spatial compression of another sans serif font, because of the uniform stroke widths mentioned earlier.

My search continues... any other leads are much appreciated! Don't keep the secret to yourself!

[Joe Bowey]

From "photoshop 7 down and dirty tricks"
Movie poster section.
They used "Minion" and "Bodega Serif" for credits.
I hope this helps

[Robert Knecht Schmidt]

I'm satisfied that Univers 39 Thin Ultra Condensed is the movie poster font.

And I realize this is probably what Keith meant when he just said "Univers."

I've found it for $21 on myfonts.com.

[Robert Knecht Schmidt]

I recently found myself engaged in another font search that irritatingly stretched from 15 a minute project to a week's worth of scouring the internet. In the end, useful human assistance proved nonexistent but the following sites answered my prayers. Forsooth, they put an end to any "what's this font?" questions that might be asked here.

The first compares a sample image of text against a database of fonts from many different libraries (after performing a user-corrected OCR of the sample image).

http://www.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/

This latter site asks questions about your sample image to whittle down the possible lists of fonts to choose from.

http://www.identifont.com/index.html

If either of these databases had been available when I was looking for the movie poster credits font last year, I probably would have found it with ease.

Amusingly, What the Font? even uses the got milk? logo as one of the built-in examples of its font-matching prowess. How about that.

[Keith Loh]

Thanks a lot Robert. I've totally needed this site before.

[Robert Knecht Schmidt]

Some designers might also find SteelTongs useful. It includes special characters for the mini stacked credits--"A FILM BY", "PRODUCED BY", "SCREENPLAY BY", etc.