The title of a movie is the first connection a viewer has with a film. From the moment a friend asks “Did you see that movie?” its title is the element with which your brain identifies the experience. But the look of that title its often relegated to a second plane. We believe that good typography makes a huge difference and it’s a factor in determining how well a film will be remembered. Typography has the power of merging a series of character shapes into the fabric of a movie, so strongly that anything written on the style of that movie title, immediately belongs to that universe.

Movie Night, hosted by Ana Gómez Bernaus, will feature three incredible, award winning movie poster and main title designers: Lisa Bolan, Manija Emran, and Tomasz Opasinski. Through their stories you’ll learn how typography can reflect the voice of the film, and amplify the meaning of the words themselves.

Lisa Bolan is a creative director, illustrator, and title designer based in Los Angeles.

Originally from New York, Lisa attended the Rhode Island School of Design earning degrees in both illustration and graphic design. After RISD she relocated to Los Angeles and began her career designing for film, television, game marketing, music packaging, and multimedia.

Lisa began working at Prologue Films in 2007. At Prologue, she designed over 30 film and television titles including Beauty & The Beast, Queen Sugar, Of Kings and Prophets, The Killing Fields, The Fifth Estate, Zoo, Sleepy Hollow, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part One & Part Two, Arthur, The Apparition, ESPN 30 for 30, and The Oscars. She has also created VFX and time-lapse sequences for films such as The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part One & Part Two, as well as illustrations and designs for title sequences including Tropic Thunder, Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, Iron Man 3, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Black Mass, American Horror Story Murder House, Hotel and Suburbicon.

Since becoming a Creative Director at Elastic in 2017, she’s created titles for The Alienist, Altered Carbon, Pink Collar Crimes, Yellowstone and C.B. Strike titles. Her work on The Alienist and Altered Carbon garnered two Emmy nominations for Outstanding Main Title Design.

Manija Emran is an Afghan graphic designer based in Los Angeles. With a love of the handmade, an eye for detail and an extensive typographic background, Manija studied in Montreal before working with celebrated designers in London, Paris, NYC and Los Angeles. She now works at her own company Me & the Bootmaker. Her work spans all forms of design: logo, book and packaging design, signage and poster design, typography, title sequence and motion graphic design.

D&AD, One Show, SXSW and TDC Award winning motion design has seen her design for Oscar winning films alongside the Oscar ceremony itself. The designs stem from a meticulous eye for detail and a very steady hand producing hand made title sequences for Rango, Robin Hood, London Boulevard, Bad Teacher, The Help, Fright Night, Snow White and The Huntsman, Manhunt, We are the Giant, The Huntsman: Winter’s War, Franca: Chaos and Creation, Homemade: Hidden Wounds, Let It Fall: Los Angeles 1982–1992 and Britannia amongst others. Listed as one of the Top Ten Women of Title Design by the notable website Art of the Title.

Tomasz Opasinski

Entertainment Advertising Creative Director, author and independent consultant in over 560 campaigns for Hollywood Entertainment Advertising Agencies and Movie Studios. Participant, winner and juror of numerous national and international competitions. Currently at Netflix as Creative Lead. Website: www.Opasinski.com

Thank you to our sponsors, Netflix and Josh Cellars.