I wanted to ask, what is the simplest way for us low budget filmmaking folk to actually get a good quality hand print on a black background like this?

Thanks!
Dave

If you need some translations in German, drop a mail.

Thanks for helping make my favorite movie

The real irony of it though is that in some ways, what we do is extremely accurate. For real world stuff you have a set of design parameters. It is no different in film. We have a brief, a set of requirements and we fulfill them. They just happen to be different, even if the end result has some similarities to the real world.

Oddly enough though, I actually really dislike that comment. Real world displays are utilitarian and boring. I agree. But why? These are things we have to sit in front of everyday. Use almost everyday. Perhaps the failure is to integrate better aesthetics into the real world stuff. Why should it be boring?

Perhaps an analogy is appropriate. I can work in an office. If I wanted it utilitarian, i could have it. It would be a good and perfectly functional office. A surface to work on. Something to sit on. Power outlet an maybe some shelves. But I want and need much more than that. I want an environment to work in. A good place I feel comfortable in, that I like and want to be in. That sometimes involves a lot of superfluous decoration and non-essential elements.

Funny, I didn’t think there could be any such thing as the ‘most advanced tech company in the world’. I am sure there are lots who would want and could take that title.

Sadly, in real life, they appear to be most comfortable with boring flat colors, green, red, grey. Gradients? Never heard of such a thing.

The reality is that real software in biometrics today is about as sexy as designing the UI for a printer.

Coleran, stick to what you do best, ignore the critics: “that’s not possible”. There are not many designers in software development, and developers like myself need inspiration like the designs on your site, to let us know: “yes, this boring technology can be sexy too”

I’m also curious as to what consideration you give to future proofing—as some of the older examples in your portfolio show interfaces that probably looked cutting edge and futuristic when first designed now look fairly antiquated, effecting the overall date-feel of the movie.

There is little access to government interfaces and that which does exist, tends to be very old (having undergone a mandatory clearance time period). The fact is, they would use very little that is different in look and feel from any other systems and interfaces out there. If anything, a basic knowledge of the slow pace at which any government service operates, technologically, one could make the assumption that it is a few years out of date.

Overall, the look we go for in these circumstances is almost a hybrid of what Mac, Windows and Linux would look like. The content itself is made to look ‘techy’ but fulfill just one primary aspect. Tell the story.

Reference points we would go to for this kind of thing is no different than the content shows. Image liraries, video feed and camera installations. Databases and communications. All stuff that exists in the real world, used by many other people, not in government. The common assumption is that they have their own unique systems, whereas they probably do not. The way their system work and interact along with odd tools might be unique but generally, not a lot different.

The irony here is that the perception they have something different from the rest of us, is probably propagated by films.

Cheers

Mark