2001’s Boilerplate Text

2001: a Space Odyssey is a pretty remarkable film in that virtually every control panel and operating surface in the film is labelled, neatly describing the operation of each device or panel. And in keeping with Kubrick’s focus on realism, the labels accurately described what each thing was narratively supposed to do. The production team used Letraset rub-down dry-transfer lettering.

What was Letraset?

I’ve moved my writeup of Letraset instant lettering to its own page. If you aren’t familiar with this 1960s typesetting technology, check it out!

What was the boilerplate?

Anyway. One detail about the props and sets of 2001 is that many of them have little blocks of text in very small type, in addition to the labels that meant something. And it turns out that much of the ultra-small writing was actually just repeated generic boilerplate text! I guess there was only so far that they could go...

I’ve examined high resolution photos of the back wall of the pod interior, and also pictures of the two surviving spacesuit packs, and eventually was able to decipher the nonsense text. And amusingly it was nothing more than  a Letraset dry transfer instruction paragraph, accompanied by a list of Letraset patents.

In other words, they simply recycled the header text printed at the top of each Letraset sheet. I had difficulty reading many of the numbers, but was able to cross-reference most to actual historical patents.

Now, it turns out I wasn't the only one to make this observation. Adam Savage later mentioned this fact in one of his videos, commenting that a friend of his noted this text on the spacesuit pack at an exhibition or somewhere (possibly the Academy Museum in Los Angeles, which had the blue spacesuit pack on display).

And, in fact, an example of this boilerplate is legible in the actual film! The Aries 1B shuttle liquid food scene shows a flight attendant pulling straws out of her Pan Am branded Seabrook Farms “Liquipak” food bags, and if you look over to the right-hand side you can read the actual generic boilerplate text. This is easily read in the 4K scan of the movie, and would likely have been legible in original 70mm projections of the film when it was first released. Check it out below.

Incidentally Pan Am (Pan American Airways) was an American airline that dominated global air travel in the 1900s. It collapsed in 1991. Seabrook Farms was a massive producer of frozen food in the eastern USA in the 1940s and 1950s, though famously with controversial labour practices. They were gone by the 1970s.

Finding the boilerplate

Having worked out the text, I spent some time trying to find a Letraset sheet that included this text, and couldn’t find one. The vast majority of surviving sheets for sale on auction sites were produced in the 1970s through 90s. But the text we need was only printed on Letraset sheets made sometime between 1961 (when Letraset dry transfers were released) and 1964 (when Letraset changed the legalese for the patents). Dry transfers hadn’t yet taken over the world, and so there’s not much of the really early vintage material around.

Fortunately, thanks to fellow 2001 enthusiast Keith Scaife, I’m able to show you a scan of an early 1960s Letraset sheet header, which includes the exact legalese found on the various 2001 props and sets. Hey presto!

And here’s what it said, for those interested. First, here are Letraset backing sheet instructions, which appear beneath the “CHARGING INSTRUCTIONS” text on the chest pack. The original text is horizontally justified, unlike below.

        EVERY “INSTANT LETTERING” SHEET IS INTERLEAVED WITH
        A PROTECTIVE BACKING SHEET.  KEEP BETWEEN TYPE SHEET
        AND ARTWORK TO PREVENT ACCIDENTAL TRANSFER OF LETTERS.

Second there is the patent text. The writing on the EVA pod back wall includes most of this except for a section partway through the first line. The orange chest pack decal was cut off during installation and the last part of each line is missing.

So in the text below, some parts are present in the pod and missing from the orange suit pack. Omitting chunks of the text is something they seem to have done deliberately – there are a number of areas where the boilerplate blocks look like they’ve only been partially applied and even overlapped, presumably to give some variation of appearance.

PATENTS: BRIT. 906,934; U.S. 2,558,803 AND 3,013,917; FR. 1,293,384; BELG 605,371
AND 619,000; S.AFR. R61/259; RHOD. 366/61; AND OTHER PATENTS AND PENDING
PATENTS IN ALL PRINCIPAL COUNTRIES OF THE WORLD.     PRINTED IN ENGLAND.

The orange pack in question is seen in the film in considerable detail, particularly during Bowman’s first EVA when he darkens his visor using a magic polarizer of some kind.

The patent list is kind of funny. Especially the reference to “principal” countries of the world, yet places like Germany, Japan, even Canada and Australia aren’t listed. And yet Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and South Africa are. Later sheets included Canada, Australia, India, and Pakistan, so presumably they were patent pending before that.

By the early 1970s they dropped printing the specific countries and patent numbers, and just said that “Letraset products are protected widely by patents and patent applications throughout the world. Letraset, Instant Lettering, and Spacematic are Trade Marks.” (sic)

What typeface was used?

This took ages to figure out. The font used to set the legalese was never available from Letraset themselves. It seemed reasonable that it must have been a standard hot metal type used in the UK at the time.

So I spent a bunch of time looking through old catalogues, focusing on type used in the UK in the 1960s. And eventually found it. At least, I’m fairly sure I found it – it looks pretty well exact, except for subtle differences in the punctuation marks used on the Letraset sheet.

The boilerplate was set in Monotype Grotesque Condensed 383. The matrices for this font are still held today by the Science Museum, London.

There was a commercial effort in the 1990s to digitize a bunch of the Monotype Grotesque faces, and to try and and organize them into a family. But that was a bit tricky since the individual fonts were never created as a single cohesive typeface. Each font has its own unique and idiosyncratic features that generally don’t match others with the same “Grotesque” name. Every one has a differently shaped uppercase Q, for example.

Grotesque Condensed 383 was renamed Monotype “Grotesque MT Std Extra Condensed” in its digital form. It’s available directly from Monotype and also via Adobe Fonts.

The picture below is my approximation of the boilerplate lettering, using the Monotype digital face. I’ve emulated all the strange letterspacing, kerning, and seeming weight changes of the original.

If you want a free approximation of this typeface, the Google font Oswald Regular (the one used for headings on this page, incidentally) is fine if you don’t look too closely.

Booze on the Aries

OK – this doesn't really fit here, but it's just some random crap I thought I'd write down because it was kinda funny. So this is as good a place as any.

When the flight attendant on the Aries 1B lunar shuttle goes to fetch a liquid food pack meal for the pilots, you can see a backlit beverage list posted on the right side of the RCA/Whirlpool-brand food dispenser. (minor amusing sidenote: the company dropped “RCA” from its name in 1966, going back to Whirlpool before the film was actually released, resulting in an anachronism in the movie) More insane attention to detail.

The numbers must have been codes you punch in to serve a given drink. There’s a keypad below the signage, with a large button marked DELIVER.

It's mostly booze, but there’s nothing as déclassé as beer. Orange juice or even plain water is not an option. How terribly 1960s.

BEVERAGES

Scotch 01
Bourbon 02
Rye 03
Vodka 04
Gin 05

Martini 10
Manhattan 11
Daiquiri 12
Grasshopper 13
Old Fashion (sic) 14

Brandy 20
Cointreau 21
Benedictine 22
Creme (sic) de Menthe 23
Drambuie (no number)

Sherry 30
Port 31
Red Wine 32
White Wine 33
Rose (sic) Wine 34

Tonic Water 40
Bitter Lemon 41
Ginger Ale 42
Soda Water 43
Pepsi Cola (no number)

Sorbete de Papaya 50
Crème de Granadilla 51
Mango Extract 52
Apricot Nectar 53
Apple Cider 54

As for the typeface, I can’t say for sure since the lettering is quite small. It looks like Letraset’s Folio Bold Condensed.

There’s also a food menu on the left side of the dispenser, but it’s too small to be legible in the film.

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