Supers (Supered Text)

"Supers" - short for "supered text" (superimposed) - is the broad industry term for any text laid over picture. Captions, lower thirds, locations, dates, end-of-scene chapter titles. If text is on the screen and it isn't part of the world being filmed, it's a super.

The history goes back to silent films, where intertitles were the only way to deliver dialogue. Once sound arrived, supers shrank into a specialty: identifying speakers, places, times. They never went away. They never will.

Good supers respect the safe area, sit on a grid, and disappear when they're not needed. Bad supers stick around three seconds too long, sit in the lower-third zone forever, or cover an actor's face. Design as if the audience will read this on a phone with one eye.