Scripts in different fonts

[SundownInRetreat]

I've just started reading Robocop and was surprised to see it's written in a completely different font to Courier 12. The font looks a bit like Lucida Console (in bold) and I'm just curious - considering jow golden Courier 12 is - as to how this got by the system, be it a spec to an exec or a paid gig for a producer.

Whatever the reason, it's a bloody pain to read.

[christopher jon]

Well, it was 1987. 25 years ago.

If you're reading the same version I have, it looks like an awful 1980's printer is to blame.

Poor writer probably wrote it on a monochrome monitor and had to save it to a floppy disk.

Even worse, it may have been written on a typewriter!

[SundownInRetreat]

4th draft - 10/06/86.

Deffo futuristic font.

[christopher jon]

The REV 8/4/86 at the top of the pages is in courier so maybe they were just trying to be cool. Who knows, it was the 80's.

[SundownInRetreat]

Originally Posted by christopher jon

Who knows, it was the 80's.

I miss the 80's. It's an easy target for mockery (but isn't every decade?) especially by those who never lived through the decade (an automated reaction because they feel it's expected - and quite ironic as a lot of 80s fashions have returned of late) but the 80s were defining and (Keanu speak: on) most awesome. I could explain further but it would have nothing to do with screenwriting

[SoCalScribe]

Originally Posted by SundownInRetreat

I've just started reading Robocop and was surprised to see it's written in a completely different font to Courier 12. The font looks a bit like Lucida Console (in bold) and I'm just curious - considering jow golden Courier 12 is - as to how this got by the system, be it a spec to an exec or a paid gig for a producer.

Whatever the reason, it's a bloody pain to read.

Sometimes people use different fonts and "unique" formatting choices; for example, Cormac McCarthy's recent spec, THE COUNSELOR was in Times New Roman and formatted more like a stageplay than a screenplay. I think that goes to show that the industry isn't a "system" designed to toss things out for formatting errors alone, but your point about poor formatting being a "bloody pain to read" is right on the money. I suggest people take the time to format their script properly not because there's some secret industry tribunal that passes judgement on poorly formatted screenplays... but because proper formatting is easier to read and shows that you have a certain amount of professionalism about your work.

[SundownInRetreat]

Yeah, I was just wondering why he did it and how it was received considering it's frowned upon and makes life difficult. I can only assume he wasn't i danger of getting booted (maybe even a producer) and knew he could get away with it.

[ComicBent]

Here is what most likely happened. I will try to keep this short and simple.

The original script probably had a perfectly acceptable typewriter-like computer font. It may have been a Courier with a slightly different name (e.g., Courier10 BT) or a typewriter-imitation font (the Vintage fonts include Remington, Underwood, and some others).

Someone made a PDF without embedding the font. This is an important issue, because if you do NOT embed the font, you may not see the same font in the PDF.

If I send you a PDF of a script and I have not embedded my Courier that has a strange name, your PDF reader will not be able to display the font. Only a few fonts are built into the PDF readers. The built-in fonts include Courier, but the PDF reader does not know that OldTimeMono10 is a Courier font with a bizarre name. (I made that name up, so don't try to find it.)

What the PDF reader does is to substitute a font for OldTimeMono10. My experience has been that Adobe Reader uses a sans serif font for a "Courier" that it does not recognize. I saw this happen once when someone had used a Vintage Typewriter font (something like Remington) in a script. The font was not embedded. It displayed as some kind of weird sans serif font.

You can usually see what the original font was. Look under FILE | DOCUMENT PROPERTIES | FONTS. You should find some comment about the "original" font. If the font was embedded, you will see some kind of remark about "embedded" somewhere there.

EDIT TO ADD: I just saw the remark about a Courier font used for the "Draft Number and Date" at the top of the pages. So I don't know. Is this a scanned script? If it is, it will most likely be an image PDF, not a regular PDF. You can tell by trying to select and copy some text. If you cannot do that, it is an image, and this was just scanned.