The fonts of 2010

With all cinematographic fare visual impact is key. In no other genre than science fiction can this be any more true. Avec serif or sans the same, typography is more than merely shapes of letters.


Stanley Kubrick's love for sans serifs is well known and thoroughly documented. His choices for 2001: A Space Odyssey include inserting one (1) title card with serifs, in order to immediately tell the viewers the event happened a long, long time ago. But how is the case with director Hyams, then? What were the typographical design choices in 2010?


The 2010 Logo

Of all the visual elements of the movie the one with the most immediate impact is the 2010 logo. Sure, the Monolith may be the most recognizable item of the Odyssey Sequence, but the element which people first see is the logo.

A lot of the official paraphernalia, such as books and programmes all carry the same logo.

The font used for the various publications is often not one specific font, but a mish-mash of two different ones. Kabel and Busorama, to be specific. Howbeit the movie logo itself is made up of one single font: Busorama. Many third party publications have opted to use Kabel instead of Busorama for reasons unknown. If the zeroes in "2010" have been replaced with the letter "O" - as was done in the titles for 2001: A Space Odyssey - it can be very difficult to see whether the font is Kabel or Busorama.

Kabel was designed by German designer and deeply religious man Rudolf Koch, and even though the name suggests the font would have been designed for a cable car - 'Kabel' being German for 'cable' - the font is a sans serif based on both his own previous font Koch Antiqua, released in 1922, and the Erbar font also from 1922, created by none other than Jakob Erbar. However, Kabel is not a fraktur but a geometric sanserif started at the Bauhaus in 1926; the font was designed for Klingspor in 1927. Koch later reused many of the concepts of Kabel in other fonts, perhaps most notably in his Zeppelin font.

Koch was one of the leading calligraphers of his time, who worked as a designer, typographer and type designer primarily from 1914 to 1934, mostly with the Klingspor foundry. His artistic estate is now housed in the Klingspor Museum, Offenbach.

Kabel in all it's glory.

As mentioned, the font used in official publications regarding 2010 is Busorama. In fact, the main logo - the number series 2-0-1-0 - is created using plain Busorama and nothing else.

Busorama in action.

The font in question was created in 1970 by Tom Carnase, and especially the number 2 clearly shows the influence of the early 20th century German fontographers. Carnase was, and is, a graphic designer  and typographer from the United States. All of Carnase's widely known fonts are sans serif fonts, and so is the Busorama, as well. The Busorama font is mostly distributed as 'ITC Busorama', where the 'ITC' letters stand for International Typeface Corporation, nowadays known as Monotype Imaging.

Busorama and Kabel compared.

The Busorama font has many similarities with the Kabel font, and it can be difficult for the untrained eye to see any differences between the number '2' in Kabel and the number '2' in Busorama.


Poster Font

"Avant Garde a clue." - George Harrison

The text on the movie poster itself is created with the plain Avant Garde font. Apart from the "2010" logo, the entire poster is created using plain Avant Garde. The Avant Garde is another one of Tom Carnase's fonts. The font is in fact an expansion on a magazine logo created by Herb Lubalin, the co-founder of the ITC corporation. While Carnase was working for ITC he was tasked with helping Lubalin to extend the Avant Garde logo into a complete font.

Inception

At the very start of the movie we see a quick synopsis of the events - essentially the third act of the previous movie 2001: A Space Odyssey - that led up to the situation the movie starts from. The synopsis is presented as a series of stills with very compressed text information.

Synopsis still.

One would expect the font to be one of either Microgramma or Eurostile in any of either's variations, since no other font says Science Fiction quite like the two. Here our expectations are ruthlessly thwarted, and we are not even 5 minutes into the movie yet. Director Peter Hyams deviates from Accepted Wisdom™ and bravely does the unthinkable. The font used is a common variation of Grotesque.

The Grotesque font doing what it does best.

The font can at a quick glance seem like it is a version of Futura, which would have created a nice bridge between the end titles of the previous movie and the opening titles of the sequel. However the letter M gives the game away immediately, and at a closer look the J letter is not the same, either. Grotesque it is.

The Grotesque font family consists of hundreds, if not thousands of variations. The word itself is from the italian word for 'cave-belonger', grottesco, and it was first used by George Thorowgood in the mid 19th century. After that event the word slowly entered the common vocabulary. (Do not confuse the name with George Thorogood, who is bad to the bone.)


HAL-9000

HAL all dressed up in Eurostile.

Good ol' HAL retains the font from 2001: A Space Odyssey, and the usage of the font is quite consistent. It is indeed Eurostile Bold Extended all the way. Somewhat strangely, 2010: The Year We Make Contact is suspiciously devoid of both Eurostile and Microgramma, while being a Science Fiction Film. The exception might be the Cyrillic text, or "Russian Font".


The "Russian Fonts"

Video Image source used for Leonov monitors.

The Cyrillic fonts seen in the movie are two different fonts. One is seen on the various monitors that litter the Leonov, the other is seen on the walls, the equipment, the consoles, and so on.

The video monitor font is a sans serif font created by the video monitor production team. The video monitor feeds and readouts were not created on-the-fly, but were pre-rendered video feeds.

The production company Video Image produced an hour's worth of pre-rendered video, but these were created by an ordinary IBM PC 5150 from 1984. The limitations of the machine - 320 x 200 pixel resolution was only possible in black and white - meant that for rendering and creating the video loops in 4, 8, and 16 colours a Cubicomp PictureMaker frame buffer was used, creating 512 x 512 pixel images. All of these steps in creating the monitor images make the fonts themselves very low resolution.

Video image on board the Leonov in the movie.

This, then again, meant that the fonts seen on the Leonov displays can not be determined. The resolution of the video feed, not the resolution of the movie captures, sets a limit for legibility. Video Image video engineer Greg McMurry confirms that this was by design. "Peter [Hyams] wanted a low-resolution look to the graphics," he said, "which was fortunate because we wouldn't have been able to get anything else in volume in the amount of time we had."

The font can only be said to very remotely resemble Eurostile Bold, but it could in fact be almost any Grotesque variation. Especially curious is the fact that the letter E is not the same across all the video feeds. The video monitor fonts are most probably fonts set by the rendering and animation software, fonts with no actual name. However, none of the eight system fonts that were distributed with the Cubicomp - Stymie, Optima, Helv, Bauhaus, Typewr, Eras, Centur, and Times - is capable of producing the text on the Leonov monitors.

A 'cosmic rocket' on a Leonov display.

Unsurprisingly, the "Russian font" was not a pre-made font. It was in fact created by the Video Image engineers John Wash and Richard Hollander. "For the Russian graphics," said McMurry, "John and Richard had to create Russian fonts and then relabel the keys on their computers with Russian characters so they could write Russian." If it was based on any pre-existing font, is not known.

The other Cyrillic font, the one seen on the walls and the equipment on board the Leonov is based on a real font, and it is unremarkably a variation of Eurostile.

Cyrillic font as seen on the monitors of the Leonov.

The cyrillic computer font can be seen throughout the Leonov, and it is in fact the same across all screens we can see.


Mission Patches

The various patches on the environment suits of both the American and the Russian crew are somewhat mysterious. And anomalous.

Low-detailed replica of mission patch
without cosmonaut and astronaut names.

Contrary to what intuition might suggest, mission patches have a long history, with the tradition originating in the Confederate Army of the American Civil War(!) when soldiers were given military shoulder patches for differentiation purposes.

Ever since the first American space mission patches worn by the Gemini 5 crew of 1965 - the Gemini 4 'patch' was simply an American flag, the first of it's kind - the patches are without exception designed by the astronauts themselves. After the Apollo 1 tragedy all mission patches have been silk-screened on non-flammable Beta-silica fiber, so called "beta cloth". However the patches in both 2001 and 2010 are embroidered. The fonts are also somewhat mysterious, and the ones in 2010 do not seem to be the same as the ones in 2001.

Since the fonts are similar to any recognizable font, it can be assumed the font in question is merely a generic Helvetica font with Cyrillic characters used by the embroidery machine.


HAL Message Screen

The message screen

We will wrap this up with the "message screen" transmitted by HAL as its final farewell. The screen was again made by Video Image, and it - as all the other screens, too - suffers from the low resolution problem. The font on this final screen however is different from all the other screens produced by Video Image, and as such it warrants a closer look.

The font is obviously a sans serif, and it might be a variation of Helvetica Thin. Most probably, however, the font is merely the Helv system font of the Cubicomp PictureMaker system.




Please, please visit Dave Addey's typographical wonderland also known as TypesetInTheFuture, by clicking here.

Images copyright ©1984 MGM, ©1984 Video Image.

Monolith Metrics - Component One

Measuring meager monoliths might mean more mysteries. Seldom has a black brick attracted so much interest.

Monolith action figure with
almost real dimensions.

The monolith might be the most recognizable shape associated with the Odyssey Sequence. Mysterious, silent, and very, very black, it remains defiant; a taciturn sphinx, challenging us to make it divulge its secrets. Which it never does, of course.

According to Arthur Clarke's description, the monolith is a completely reflectionless, black, rectangular shape in the precise ratio of 1:4:9 - precise to the limits of measurability - and every monolith is the same size: "as large as necessary".

However, when fans of both 2001 and 2010 finally set their eyes on a monolith with the actual ratio of 1:4:9, the reaction is almost invariably the same: "that cannot be right".


Indeed, the ratio of the monoliths in either movie are not the squares of the three first natural numbers. Author Clarke stumbled upon the brilliant idea of the ratio after Kubrick had already settled on the visual appearance of the monolith. By the time Clarke realized the dimensions, the monoliths were already built and Kubrick had already shot all of the scenes involving the obsidian ingot.


Stereoliths

Director Peter Hyams had the opportunity to correct the ratio when he shot 2010, but he decided to use the same visual style as they had in 2001 for the mysterious monoliths. The reason why this happened is rather amusing.

"An interesting thing about the monolith," says 2010 matte painter Matthew Yuricich, "is that when we first started, in the script, Peter [Hyams] called for a ratio of 1:4:9 - 1 thick, 4 wide and 9 long. We did that and it looked like a cement block."

The monoliths are de facto never shown with the ratio 1:4:9. When the slabs were produced for 2010, Arthur C. Clarke had not yet made it known the revelation regarding the ratio came to him after the monoliths for 2001 had already been shot, so the accepted wisdom was that the monoliths in 2001: A Space Odyssey were indeed in the precise ratio 1:4:9. No-one knew otherwise.

It was with this assumption that director Hyams placed the order for scores of paintings of the enigmatic, murky lumps. The reason they did not appear as ordered in the motion picture is due to nothing short of mutiny.

Matthew continues: "I talked to [matte department supervisor] Neil [Krepela] about it and said: 'There's nothing to it - no aesthetics. It looks like a damned brick.' He said that was what Peter was calling for, but to go ahead a slim it down anyway - and I did."

Monolith with actual ratios.

Painter Yuricich then produced a slimmed down version of the colorless hunk, and fingers crossed showed the result to director Hyams.

"And as soon as Peter [Hyams] saw it, he said, 'Go ahead and slim it down.' Actually, our proportion ended up being something like 1:4:15 or something like that, to give a little grace to it."

Having stumbled upon this eye opener, Yuricich wanted to know what the featureless bricks actually looked like in the previous movie.

"We dug up some photographs that they had of the 2001 monoliths and, my god, those were about 1 to 40! Very slim. About half the size of a domino proportion. So even though it was written to be 1:4:9, everyone seemed to realize that it wouldn't have the grace and symmetry at that exact ratio."

The conclusion is inescapable. The world of the page and the world on the silver screen are divided by ratios (pun hinted at). The ratio works much better as a poetic concept than as a visual one.


Morpholiths

As mentioned, the monoliths are not consistent between the 2001 novel and the 2001 movie, due to the events described. The black slabs are not really consistent between the 2001 and 2010 movies, either.

Strangest of all, they are not even consistent within the movies.

Some of the monoliths are wider than others, and some are differently colored. The various tints and hues could possibly be explained by the surrounding environment where the slabs reside, but it is obvious that the tinctures are merely artistic decisions. Almost all the monoliths, bar the digital depictions by Leonov's computer, are paintings. Very few models were used. The last time we set our eyes on the monolith, in the very last scene of the movie, the model is not even rectangular.

Super-wide monolith metrics in 2010.

Since the monolith paintings were done with artistic and visual issues in mind, this results in some interesting effects. Essentially the monoliths are all different, every single one of them.

The monoliths in 2010 take on a variety of different shapes, and none of the ratios are the squares of the first natural numbers. The widest monolith in the movie is 12 times as wide as it is thick, and would probably not even classify as a monolith, but rather as a wall. We never actually see the mysterious ratio on the silver screen.


Neverliths

ThinkGeek's TMA-2 action figure: "zero points of articulation".

Monolith Action Figure source (note: it's not real)

In the Space Odyssey myth the monoliths are apparently capable of sustaining themselves indefinitely, are impervious to any force known to Man, always maintain their dimensional ratio, are extremely flat, and so on. In contrast, in the movie universe the monoliths seem to be very flexible indeed.

At times author Clarke stated he was as perplexed by the monoliths as everyone else was, and further said that everyone else's ruminations about the nature of the blocks were almost as valid as his own. It also appeared he himself was just as baffled and surprised by the changing nature of the darkened plaques as the readers were.

Perhaps the only conclusion we can draw thereof is the monoliths never really had a set nature, not even in the mind of the author.

Maybe they, like so many other enigmas, are their own key. If so, we will probably never solve their mystery.

Images ©1984 MGM, ©2010 ThinkGeek, ©2015 Odyssey Archive.

Kaypro's Odyssey Files

Telecommunications help bring 2010 to the silver screen. 

by Jessica Horsting

When MGM chief Frank Yablans first asked director Peter Hyams to head the filming of 2010, a sequel to the science fiction classic 2001, his immediate response was an emphatic "No way." His reaction was not unreasonable; many professional filmmakers felt 2001 was a definitive film—so complete that no sequel could do it justice. Filming 2010 implied a sacrilege akin to writing the Bible, Part II.

The original film was inspired by an Arthur C. Clarke short story "The Sentinel." Under the distinctive direction of Stanley Kubrick, and in collaboration with Clarke, the concept of the story was interpreted and expanded into the landmark, feature length space odyssey. Clarke subsequently wrote a novelization of that film, then followed up with a best-selling sequel, 2010. Both novels examine the consequences of man's first contact with an intelligent, alien life form.

Hyams appreciated both the artistry of the Kubrick film and the renown of writer Arthur C. Clarke. Hyams felt confident he could handle the project, having recently directed two feature films, Outland and The Star Chamber. But still, he was hesitant. He saw 2010 as "a frightening challenge . . .the first film was a classic."

Apparently, the challenge was irresistible. Hyams agreed to undertake the project.

His next worry involved faithfully translating Clarke's story to the screen. He had been asked not only to direct, but to produce the screenplay based on the best-selling book. His solution was simple and straightforward. Following Kubrick's lead, Hyams solicited the novelist's help: "I wanted Arthur not only to know everything I felt had to be done, I wanted his input — not only his blessings, but his ideas . . . ." Clarke in turn was delighted to assist, with the one stipulation: that he be permitted to work from his home.

In Sri Lanka.

Clarke at his Kaypro IIx.

A tiny island nation off the coast of India, Clarke's home was 14 time zones and almost 8000 miles from Los Angeles where the film was being made. Hyams thought they could work it out, though the question was how? The hoped-for simple solution to Hyams' scripting problems had gotten a teeny bit complicated.

The time differential made conventional telephoning extraordinarily inconvenient, requiring one or both of the men to stay up to ungodly hours in the morning to consult with one another. Using a mailing system would involve extensive, not to mention expensive, delays. The obvious alternative was a computer link. The only problem remaining was to select the hardware.

It was at this juncture that Destiny and the Kaypro Corporation conspired to provide a solution.


Two times 2

While Hyams and Clarke had yet to decide which microcomputer to employ, Kaypro Corporation had already contacted the Sri Lanka Foundation as part of their promotion agenda involving the donation of a Kaypro to the Third World Fundamental Studies Program. The Sri Lanka Foundation is an organization initiated in part by Clarke himself, and he remains an active participant. Clarke has been a long time user of small computers and is intimately familiar with the technology. He was naturally curious to take a first hand look at the gift Kaypro 2.

After inspecting the unit and discussing the virtues with director Hyams, the two men decided the Kaypro 2 would be ideal for their purposes. In exchange for a promotional screen credit, Kaypro agreed to provide twin units to Hyams and Clarke. The production company went one step further and purchased two additional units — one for the 2010 documentary team and one for Clarke's long-time associate Steve Jongeward, who acted as his Los Angeles liaison during production.

Having settled on the hardware, the next problem was a technical one of communications protocol. This was solved neatly by Clarke, Jongeward, and the good advice of Jim Swanner— Kaypro retailer and all-around nice guy.

Most communications programs available for the Kaypro 2 didn't provide the versatility that Clarke and Hyams felt was required. They needed a system that would allow each unit to send and receive lengthy messages with a minimum of time and error, a system that would deliver a missive which would patiently wait to be retrieved on demand, and above all, one that would perform dependably. Buzz words like "baud rate," "multifile capacity," "synchronous/asynchronous transmission," and "protocol accommodation" took on new significance for all involved.

But Clarke knew where to turn for help. At Clarke's suggestion, Jongeward contacted Jim Swanner. (Clarke knew of Swanner's expertise in telecommunications, and subsequently wrote the foreward for Swanner's book, Electronic Mail for Microcomputers.) Jongeward and Swanner investigated available software to find a program that would fit the bill. Swanner provided Mycroft Lab's MITE (Mycroft Intelligent Terminal Emulator), which features a multifile transfer protocol that was ideally suited to the filmmakers' requirements.

The Kaypros, fitted with Hayes Smartmodems and the MITE program, were installed: one at Clarke's home in Sri Lanka, one at Peter Hyams' office in Culver City.

Clarke and Hyams were ready to get down to business.

Their communications took the form of long, daily "letters" left on their respective machines; questions, solutions, and suggestions that could be thoughtfully laid out and considered — then sent or retrieved instantly. Starting in September of 1983, the two men communicated over aspects of the script for eight months. The result was a screenplay that strayed from the novel in certain respects, but with changes that were a cooperative compromise between the writer and the filmmaker — a rare, almost unique occurrence in novel-to-film translations.


Birth of a book 

Telecommunicating with Kaypros soon became a fact of life for the 2010 production team. The computer link proved so important that it became the focus of a one-hour documentary detailing the filming, "The Making of 2010." (Filmed with network presentation in mind, the documentary is scheduled to air in December as an adjunct to the release of the film.) It was not merely the mechanics of the link that warranted the attention, it was the special nature of the conversations.

The communiques between Clarke and Hyams encompassed more than simple problem solving. The daily "chats" became a chronicle of the evolution of the film. "The conversations are in themselves a documentary," said Jongeward. As an experiment, he began to collect and edit the disk-recorded dialogue. The conversations proved to be such a rich source of material that (with the blessing of Clarke and Hyams) Jongeward developed a book as a companion to the film.

Titled "The Odyssey Files," the volume is a compilation of the communications that took place between September of 1983 and February of 1984. Included in the book is an introduction by Clarke as well as an appendix, titled "MITE for Morons." Chagrined, Jongeward confessed, "Arthur wrote that last part for me." The book promises an unusual glimpse into the creative exchange that characterizes filmmaking. It should also provide a unique record that traces the ideas of the two men from conception to on-screen reality. (One small step for man; one giant leap for the inter-office memo.)

Jongeward admits that the communications link was not always flawless. Most of the difficulties were generated at Clarke's end of the world. Relying on cable-to-satellite-to-cable transmission, the weakest link in the chain was the primitive state of communications technology in Sri Lanka. Steve notes, "It seemed that, for days before or after a monsoon, you could count on cables being knocked down or washed away somewhere near Arthur's home."

Satellite transmissions occasionally posed a problem. "When it became overloaded, you didn't get cut off, you were down!" lamented Jongeward. But neither he nor anyone else complained about the performance of the Kaypros.


Clarke as seer

Clarke has legitimized his own prophecy.

The communications link between Hyams and Clarke has a significance beyond what has been reported above. At the risk of understating the case, what we have here is serendipity of cosmic proportions. By participating in the link, Clarke has, in a sense, legitimized his own prophecy.

A little background should make this clear.

Arthur Clarke is not a formally trained scientist, but he has gained tremendous respect from the scientific community for his innovative thinking about the applications of technology. He is no stranger to computers and telecommunications. In fact, he is credited with originating the concept of communications satellites.

In an article appearing in a 1945 issue of Wireless World (titled "Extraterrestrial Relays"), Clarke described his concept: three satellites orbiting 22,000 miles above the earth, parallel to the equator, relaying radio and television signals all over the world. Triangulated properly, they would allow radio signals to circumvent the obstacle posed to such signals, namely the curvature of the earth. The satellites would eliminate the need for signal repeaters which had long been used to get signals from hither to yon.

In hindsight, Clarke's solution seems elementary. But when his idea was accomplished a few years afterwards by the then fledgling NASA, Clarke was awarded the Franklin Institute's Gold Medal for his prediction.

It is the technological outgrowth of his 1945 idea which allowed Clarke to stay in his comfortable Sri Lanka surroundings while participating on a film being made halfway around the world.

Similar prophecy is also inherent in the Clarke-Kubrick collaboration, 2001. The events depicted in that film have been reproduced, bit by bit, in real life. The 1968 film preceded and accurately simulated such events as the space walk, the moon landing, Skylab, the shuttle program, and cooperative ventures in space. There were a score of tiny details theorized by the first film that have since been substantiated as fact with almost uncanny accuracy.

That sort of precision is Clarke's stated wish for 2010. His career as an author, inventor and technological seer is guided by his fervent commitment to scientific accuracy. In turn, director Hyams seems determined to faithfully translate Clarke's vision to the screen—with a little help from their Kaypros.




Copyright © 1984 by Jessica Horsting. All rights reserved.
Originally published October 25 1984 in Kaypro Users Magazine.
Images © 1984 Arthur C Clarke Foundation,  © 2015 MMXOA.