Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2023 April 3

= April 3 =

typefaces in titles
What fonts are used in the opening titles of both versions of Night Court?2603:7000:8641:810E:15AC:7B4:C77:1AE1 (talk) 03:27, 3 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Courtesy links: Night Court (1984–1992) title screen; Night Court 2023 poster. --Lambiam 04:57, 3 April 2023 (UTC)


 * The older one is probably Mistral. --Lambiam 05:34, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Almost certainly - the same font they used in Silk Stalkings.


 * I think the 2023 title uses Better Times Regular. It can hardly be a coincidence that Night Court is used as the example text. --Lambiam 06:06, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Since there's that reference, why isn't there an article about the Better Times font?2603:7000:8641:810E:15AC:7B4:C77:1AE1 (talk) 12:01, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Shops are scarcely WP:RS for their wares. -- Verbarson talkedits 15:51, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Paramount-Artcraft
In at least the early years of Paramount Pictures, the company (or possibly some broader entity) was known as "Paramount Artcraft" (see File:The Town Crier, v.12, no.50, Dec. 15, 1917 - DPLA - 7f8bfdc5c12489340a8febb6cb73c86b (page 2) (cropped).jpg)); also File:The Town Crier, v.12, no.43, Oct. 27, 1917 - DPLA - 8a3e213d40345c010a3e190a9ab53155 (page 10).jpg refers to "the Progressive Motion Picture Company" encompassing "a combination of the great Artcraft and Paramount motion picture concerns". Clearly this precedes Famous Players-Lasky. Our Paramount Pictures article doesn't mention "Artcraft" at all, and also says "On May 8, 1914, Paramount Pictures Corporation (previously known as Progressive Pictures) was founded&hellip;" which would not be congruent with an October 1917 article about someone being, at that date, "manager of the Progressive Motion Picture Company."

Not easily disentangled from anything I can find in 10 or so minutes of online searching. Does someone actually know their way around this? - Jmabel &#124; Talk 18:41, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Here is an in-house publication issued by Artcraft Pictures Corporation in July, 1917, on their first anniversary in business. Cullen328 (talk) 18:49, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Mary Pickford filmography has a section about Artcraft, which is described as a "special division" of Paramount. She was a very big star back then, and this arrangement gave her more creative control. She made 17 movies with Artcraft. Cullen328 (talk) 18:57, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Every time I see a photo of Mary Pickford, my heart skips a beat. Was she known for her beauty in her heyday, or is this just a good photo of her? Viriditas (talk) 08:54, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, she was, very much so. See Mary Pickford. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 176.249.31.43 (talk) 09:51, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
 * One thing to keep in mind is that we're running into the rather arcane matter of corporate organization, which is in some ways deliberately obfuscatory with regards to how different companies relate to one another (it's hard to regulate what you can't understand). While I agree there is a hole in Wikipedia's coverage of Artcraft Pictures, its relationship to Paramount may not be simple.  It seems, from what I can see, is that Artcraft was created by/for Mary Pickford to distribute her pictures.  Quite aside from her acting talent and her noted beauty, she was an extremely shrewd businessperson, and was a major executive in the movie industry, involved in the founding of many of the major companies that grew into the Golden Age of Hollywood in the next generation.  Artcraft became, through several mergers, part of Paramount, while the studio she founded with Douglas Fairbanks later became Samuel Goldwyn Studio, while her movie production and distribution house founded after she sold out Artcraft to what later became Paramount was United Artists.  There's even more I'm not covering.  Her life is a fascinating glimpse into the early years of the business of moviemaking.  -- Jayron 32 11:43, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Agreed on Pickford's business acumen. But surely some biography of her or history of Paramount has by now got this down cold. At the very least, the Paramount Pictures article should mention the name "Artcraft", plus it looks to me that what it says about Progressive Motion Picture Company is wrong. Yes, the corporate history is tangled, but I've certainly run across comparably tangled ones for railroads or mining companies, and our articles on those usually try very hard to sort out that sort of thing. Still hoping to have someone weigh in who has gone deep here at some point. - Jmabel &#124; Talk 15:01, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
 * See the page WP:NOTFINISHED for why "the Paramount Pictures article should mention the name "Artcraft", plus it looks to me that what it says about Progressive Motion Picture Company is wrong" has not been done yet. The solution to that is, of course, WP:SOFIXIT.  Wikipedia articles only get fixed because two conditions are met 1) a person who cares 2) fixes something wrong or adds something that is missing.  You appear to have met the first condition of those qualifications.  Now, if you met the second condition, the article would be correct.  -- Jayron 32 18:19, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I absolutely do not feel qualified to write about the early history of Paramount. I try to write about things where I actually have a clue. I ended up with this question because I'm currently (on Commons) working my way through about a decade's worth of content of a Seattle-based magazine, The Town Crier. In doing so, I found a few (primary, or nearly so) source materials that sent me to the Paramount Pictures article looking for context, and I found an inaccuracy on one count and a void on another. I came here hoping -- as often happens on the reference desk -- to find someone who actually knows the subject and/or knows some decent secondary sources and might be able to aim me in the right direction. I don't think the article would particularly benefit from someone with no subject matter expertise and not even knowledge of the relevant secondary sources trying to fix its coverage of what, as you remarked above, is an abstruse and tangled subject. - Jmabel &#124; Talk 04:56, 5 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Exactly. -- Jayron 32 11:06, 5 April 2023 (UTC)