Back to the Future Part II

If anyone of you is interested: Daniel (DB537) and me are working on an accurate USA Today replica for sale. It may just take a while. If anyone has access to older issues of real USA Today newspapers and is willing to help us, feel free to contact us. We are searching for multiple editions of the 22 December 1988 issue. For more informations please contact Daniel.

Unfortunately, for reasons I can't go into at the moment, I'm not able to continue with this.
Recent developments in the last few weeks prevent me from continuing with a run of this particular replica.
I will be able to explain this better in a few days but right now I can't discuss anything.
 
Here's my first test print. Unfortunately, the printer cut off the right side of the image, so I'll need to adjust those settings accordingly. I also need to brighten up the graphics a bit, and lighten the text a little as well. The text is printing darker than I'd like. I'm shooting for more grayish text, which would more accurately match the way a real newspaper looks.

I ordered few back issues of USA TODAY from 1989 for reference, and after taking a look at them, and making some measurements, it looks like my paper is a tiny bit too wide. So, my final print will be a little narrower than this one. As Roland mentioned earlier, I was hoping to grab the Dec. 22, 1988 issue to harvest some back page weather graphics & advertisements from, but it wasn’t available.

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Upper left corner name is Osteguin, not Ostenguin. :cool
 
Upper left corner name is Osteguin, not Ostenguin. :cool

Ah, you are correct. A typo on my part. As you know, the original prop contains several typos, but that isn't one of them. :) Thanks for pointing that out.
 
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I actually made my own "Youth Jailed" newspaper in photoshop, but a lot of the fonts are inaccurate. I was hoping to see one here lol.
Identifying fonts is always the biggest challenge for me when trying to re-create props like this. I use http://www.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/ quite often to help me identify mysterious fonts. I highly recommend it.

I tried my best to find the most accurate fonts possible for my BTTF2 newspaper replica, but with some of the fonts, I ended up having to use something similar, but not identical. In particular, I know the font I used in the body of the articles is not 100% accurate, but I tried my best to use something that was very close. Small serif fonts like that are always tricky for me to identify, simply because there are so many out there to choose from.

If you (or anyone) would like to know the specific fonts I used in my replica newspaper, just ask. I'd be happy to help out.
 
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If USA TODAY ends up releasing a replica of this paper, I think it would be cool if they made the "Youth Jailed/Gang Jailed section as a lenticular graphic. So the headline and photo could shift between Griff getting arrested and Marty Jr. getting arrested depending upon the angle at which the newspaper is viewed.
 
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If anyone of you is interested: I'm working on an accurate USA Today replica for sale. It may just take a while. If anyone has access to older issues of real USA Today newspapers and is willing to help me, feel free to contact me. I'm searching for multiple editions of the 22 December 1988 issue. For more informations please contact me.

Hey Roland, I have the original USA TODAY that they used to fill for the 2015 newspaper, shoot me en email and tell me what you were wondering ^^
 
Hey Roland, I have the original USA TODAY that they used to fill for the 2015 newspaper, shoot me en email and tell me what you were wondering ^^

Thanks for your kind offer, Emma. :) I already got that original filler issue. I'm searching for the two editions of the December 22, 1988 issue, that they used for the weather page (back side of the main page). The weather pages of the "Gang Jailed" and the "Youth Jailed" versions are identical except for the ad at the bottom of the pages.

USA Today Gang Jailed img7.jpg USA Today Youth Jailed img7.jpg
 
Just out of curiosity, how were you able to nail down the exact date of the donor issue?

Searched for the back page stories in the USA Today online archive search. It goes back to 1987.
They chose a back page that had a fall/winter weather map and a news story about California.

The props were created in May 1989. Some of the Newsline stories were based on current events at the time.
 
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Just out of curiosity, how were you able to nail down the exact date of the donor issue?

Also, the “Four-Day Highlight” section on the back page lists the high/low temperatures for “Yest’day - Today - Fri. - and Sat.” which means that the paper was from a Thursday, narrowing it down a little more.
 
Here are my final prints before being trimmed to size and folded.

IMG_1207.JPGIMG_1206.JPG

They're not 100% perfect, but I think they're close enough that the person I'm giving them to won't care. I just noticed that the border around the OSTEGUIN photo (top left) and the border around the SARRACINO photo (top right) should be filled in light gray instead of white. Also, the gap between the top of the USA TODAY logo box and the bottom of the "The Nation's Newspaper" line should be closer together. I also accidentally put in an extra carriage return in a portion of the article about Marty Jr. getting arrested. Oops. I hate finding things like that after it's too late to change them.

I'm not thrilled with the quality of prints I got from the large-format printer I used. The one I used was an inkjet printer, and I've noticed that the newsprint soaks up the inkjet ink and de-saturates the colors quite a bit. The inkjet ink also seems to cause the images to blur slightly as it dries, probably because the ink droplets spread out a little as they soak into the paper. My small-scale test prints were all done with a laser printer, and those looked much sharper and the colors were brighter. I'm guess that's because they use toner that's fused to the surface of the paper, and there isn't any ink to soak into the paper itself.

Overall, though, I'm pretty pleased with the results. The full size sheets after trimming are 27.5" wide by 22" tall. Folded in half, the front and back pages are 13.75" wide by 22" tall.

EDIT: I decided to use the hotel advertisement on both versions. My initial idea was to use the Stouffer's frozen food ad on one, and the hotel ad on the other, but all of the times in the film where we catch a glimpse of the back page, the hotel ad is the only ad that is visible. The frozen foods ad is never shown on-screen (not to my knowledge, at least), so that's why I stuck with the hotel ad.
 
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Reposting some information about 'Sarracino' that I shared in another thread several years ago:

I found the name Sarracino on the front page of the prop papers in 2 places, and it seemed odd to me, almost like someone was signing their work. So I searched for any person named Sarracino who worked for USA Today around 1989, and eventually found Ray Sarracino, who confirmed that he was involved in making these prop papers. Here is the message he sent to me regarding his work for BTTF II:

Hi Daniel,

Sorry that it's taken me so long, again, to get back in touch.

I can tell you that the front pages were among the most fun projects we worked on in the Promotion department of USA TODAY.

As I remember it, we contracted with a company called Norm Marshall and Associates to get us placement in films from the mid 80s at least until I left there in 1997. We paid a retainer and when they received a request for a prop USA TODAY, they would forward it to us and we would decide whether it fit with our priorities. (Most of the time it did.)

We used a templated front page and would recreate the requested page as closely as we could while retaining USA TODAY's style pallet.
The fun part was the rest of the page, which often resulted in fake articles laced with names and events revolving around friends and family.

Once prepress production was complete and the page was approved, we would print about a hundred or so copies on our advertising proof press - the one and only printing press in the USA TODAY building.

Either that or we would send the films to our sister paper, the San Bernardino Sun, who would arrange to have our prop papers run at the end of their regular daily press run.

It was always exciting to see one's work flash briefly across the screen.

My friend, I thank you for your interest in bringing me back to happy times.

Have a great day and please let me know if you need more information,

Ray
 
I saw this pic online today of Christopher Lloyd holding a BTTF2 newspaper. It's from USA TODAY's website. It might be the USA TODAY replica that they're rumored to release on Wednesday. If this is correct, it looks like they did indeed make the changes I thought they might make. Firstly, it’s smaller than the original. Secondly, the text in the top right section that used to refer to “Queen Diana” has been changed to something different, presumably because she's no longer living. (Of course, this also could have just been a replica paper made for this photo shoot.)

The link that this photo comes from has been removed from USA TODAY’s website, so I don’t know what the accompanying article was originally about.
Screen Shot 2015-10-19 at 8.23.06 PM.png
 
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Does that say 3D Billboards: Free Speech or Traffic Hazards? Har har.

I'd love for that to be real. But, damn that looks like a tiny paper. They just shrink it so gradually you don't notice, until one day you pick up the paper and it turns out to be a cocktail napkin.


-MJ
 
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