What font used for "Long time ago..."?

[The Phantom Denes]

Can anyone tell me what is the name of the font (and hopefully its
location) used for the "Long time ago" opening text for Star Wars? If
notm does anyone know of a reasonably close one? Thanks.

The Phantom Denes

[Ceri Thomas]

OK - you think Star Wars anoraks are anal, wait til you meet a typographer:

I remember reading a long time ago that the 'crawling' body text was in a
font from one of my favourites, the Franklin Gothic family. I did a bit of
research:

From http://www.starwars.com/episode-i/features/rollup/rollup2.html

"The problem was that nobody took precise notes when they were shooting
those sequences," says Knoll. "So it turned out that almost every element
had to be matched by eye." Knoll started by solving the font enigma. "We
knew that three different fonts had been used," he says, "the same trio for
all three classic Trilogy movies: one font for 'A long time ago in a galaxy
far, far away...', another font for the title of the movie itself, at the
top of the roll-up, and yet another one for the body of the text. But we had
to identify those fonts." To achieve this, Knoll sent samples of the old
roll-ups to the Art Department of Industrial Light & Magic, where resident
typography experts started combing their manuals. The culprits were soon
identified.

Hmm...they don't actually tell us what they were. Quick search for Star Wars
and Franklin -

From http://www.esselte.com/itc/about/pr29.html

New York, NY ­ April 21,1999 ­ International Typeface Corporation (ITC)
today announced that ITC Franklin Gothic® is being used for the subtitles in
the upcoming feature film "Star Wars: Episode I." Art Department Coordinator
Blake Tucker is using the font for the translations of Ben Burtt's Huttese
language, the voice of choice among Mos Espa locals. ITC Franklin Gothic
Demi is being used at 69 point with ­30 tracking, to match the titles used
in the original Star Wars Trilogy.

If you know of any sites with a grab of the real "Long time ago" text, I
could identify the specific font for you, from memory I _think_ it looked
heavier than Franklin Demi, but if you're not fussy, go with Franklin Demi
or Bold.

Hope this helps,

____/__
| , / , | Ceri Thomas
| L |
| `-|-' | cerit...@hotmail.com
'---\---' studio +44 (0)171 704 0401

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