The document discusses typography choices for the title of a neo-noir film called "Freeze." [1] It examines fonts used in classic film noir titles such as serif fonts with decorative edges and titles with backdrops or shadows. [2] It also looks at newer neo-noir titles experimenting more with colors. [3] The summary discusses choosing an uppercase bold font with varying letter sizes and placing the title over an image of the London skyline to reflect the film's setting.

1. Film Noir Typography
Hannah Burgess

2. When deciding on what
font to use in order to
make our title image of
‘Freeze’ with the
London skyline across
the front, I first needed
to research the type of
font that would be the
best for the title. The
title is the most
important thing as it is
the icon for our film and
so it must be individual
enough to stand out but
also be a signifier of our
film genre; film noir. I
started by looking at
classic film noir titles.

3. The first thing I noticed about these title’s is that they
fill up the whole frame, dead space is limited if any is
apparent. Secondly all of the fonts are all serif fonts,
which means that there are decorative pieces on the
edges of each letter, as shown in the image.
I then noticed that in classic film noir titles,
there is a backdrop or shadows to the title.
This is very common in the classic film noir
genre and is a clear signifier to the genre, this
can be seen in ‘The Shanghai Gesture’
‘Stranger on the third floor’ ‘Backfire’ ‘Detour’
and ‘Border Incident’
Next, I looked at the tracking between each
letter. I noticed that this varied across each
film, but my personal preference is for ‘The
Shanghai Gesture’ where there is an
increased tracking space between each letter.
Italic fonts are something that are also
frequently used in the titles.

4. As our film is neo-noir I then went on to look at how other films of this
subgenre had used typography in their titles. Neo-noir is a film style that
uses the elements of film noir but combines them with a modern style
and visual elements that were absent in film noirs from the 40s and 50s.
In these title’s as they’re in colour they experiment more with colours. I
personally prefer the use of black and white in terms of the font and as
our film is in black and white it is more appropriate and fitting to have
the title in black and white. I prefer the title ‘Fargo’ over ‘Drive’ because
of the use of colours but also because I prefer how it is all in
uppercase as I think this allows it to stand out more and will ensure
that the title is big and bold at the end of our trailer. I like how in ‘Body
Heat’ and ‘The Grifters’ the first letter is bigger than the following
letters but it is all still in upper case, this is something I hope to include
in my title.

5. All titles are placed on a background, which in film noir is
normally an image that is reflective of the film. However when
researching the genre film noir we found the title used for the
‘American Gangster’ trailer and instantly wanted to create our
own version for ‘Freeze,’ We loved the way that the American
skyline cut into the title but it was still clear what the title said.
This is something I will defiantly include in our title. However as
our film is based in London I will create a British version by
using a London skyline instead, hopefully featuring famous
places such as Big Ben and London eye. I also feel like there is
a lot of dead space around the title and so when making our
image I will make it bigger to fill more space. .
Hannah Burgess