The Long Letters of Pablo Ferro

Great find, Stephen! I'd never heard of PF before. I say bring back the art of hand-lettered movie titles. Also - don't just rent Bullit for the titles; for those who weren't already aware, it has one of the grittiest and most realistic car chases you'll ever see in a movie.

I'd like to start a conspiracy theory about all these Steves in the same post. I love the diabolical twist with slightly different spellings: Stephen, Steve, Steven. As if such a erudite group would be unable to spot the nefarious cabal.

Ferro is definitely cool. Thanks for the abundance of links!

> it has one of the grittiest and most realistic car chases you'll ever see in a movie.

Don't tell me it's better than the stuff in Ronin.

hhp

From what I remember of it, Ronin's car chase was highly unrealistic - not least because it was supposed to be set on the streets of Paris, where you'd be lucky to reach 35 mph, let alone the breakneck speeds they reached. Besides anything with Steve McQueen in is priceless.

As much as I enjoy a good deal of Frankenheimer's work (The Birdman of Alcatraz, Seven Days in May, The Manchurian Candidate, The Train, Seconds, The Gypsy Moths, The Horsemen, Ronin ), and sidestepping any McQueen vs. Deniro debate (or any discussion of other chases, like that in Friedkin's The French Connection), I must point out:

Bullit: 1968

Ronin: 1998

Once something has been done definitively, thirty years is plenty of time to try and do one better.

FWIW, I've always thought Ferro's title work on Dr. Strangelove was one of the oddest things about that film (and therefore memorable).

On the DVD of Dr. Strangelove (from the Stanley Kubrick Collection boxed set--don't know about other releases) there is a documentary on the making of the film. In it, there is a short interview with Ferro where he discusses the title sequence. Some interesting tidbits:

- The lettering was intended to be redone more neatly by an assistant after approval, but Kubrick liked Ferro's sketched letters as they were.

- Months after the movie was released, Kubrick called Ferro to tell him he misspelled a word in the titles ("BASE ON THE BOOK..." instead of "BASED ON THE BOOK...")

- The entire sequence--the concept of aircraft fornicating, the choice of stock footage, the choice of music, the editing--was done be Ferro, not just the lettering.

...also:

- Ferro did the trailers for the movie. They are quite different from the title sequence, but pure Ferro.

- The titles on the DVD documentary, done in the same handlettered style as the ones for Strangelove, were also done by Ferro.

I was wondering why the opening titles to Dr. Stranglove, The Addams Family (movies) and Men in Black seemed similar — Ferro made the titles for all of them!

Look at his work history… That's one great résumé!

> That's one great rÈsumÈ!

eh, it's ok...

That's me being jealous. Really jealous.

The Ferro-style font was also used in Freaks and Geeks and Mean Creek.

Please keep an eye out for the upcoming feature-length animated biopic on Pablo Ferro due out at the end of 2008. Here is a teaser to the film.

Here is the new link to the Pablo Ferro animated-docu-feature.

You will find some promotional material here. Enjoy as we continue to raise $ to finish the feature film. Stand by for an early 09 release!

Any Pablo fans who can lead us to financing out there?