"What's With All These Logos" [RANT!]

[Jim Cassedy]

Jeezus! What's with all the logos lately? Most of the titles I encounter this on are independent
or lower-budget documentaries or repertory type flicks, which often get funding from a number
of private and/or government sources - - who I guess all expect to be acknowledged or thanked
for their contributions on screen. Yesterday, I ran a private screening of a foreign film for some
programmers who might want to book the movie into their theater or circuit. There were were
18 friggin' logo screens, some with multiple entries on them, prior to the opening title shot.
Some were silent, and some had sound, (with a cornucopia of audio levels) and there was
also a whole assortment of aspect ratios. It took a full 2min 20sec to get through this "logo-fest"
before the actual movie started. Even one of the people present turned to me and asked "is this
thing going to start soon?" < end of rant >

[Mike Blakesley]

The most I've seen on a mainstream film has been five logos. It's tempting to program the DCP to start after the logo-fest is finished.

[Frank Cox]

I have a theory that the smaller the movie, the more logos are pasted onto it.

[Brad Miller]

Just wait until the movie is released internationally. Then at a bare minimum another international distributor logo will be tacked onto the front of it all!

[Ryan Gallagher]

What ever happened to tasteful black & white logos filing along in an orderly fashion during the crawl. (though I bet they are there too).

[Bobby Henderson]

Back in more normal times of movie production (we're talking 25 or more years ago) all these "limited production partner" entities would be mentioned in text during the opening title sequence, or just stuffed into the end credits. Now that nearly all "film making" is digital-based, and cooking up some ego-stroking animated company logos is cheaper and easier to produce, they gotta front load all the animated logos ahead of the movie. Shit, it's bad enough the audience has already been tortured with 30 minutes of fucking trailers, TV commercials and policy snipes. Excessive investor logos just adds more insult to injury. If this shit keeps up it's going to be easier just reading a Goddamned book.

[Agnius Acus]

The Palace by Roman Polanski comes to mind. It's quiet common for international co-productions in Europe. We usually don't show any teasers, trailers, advertisements or public announcements, so it's not that bad.

[Ed Gordon]

[Joe Redifer]

I like how each logo gets its very own screen and fade in/out plus hold for two or three seconds. God forbid they just put all/most logos on a single screen.

I think for the shitty smaller/foreign films it makes them feel more important/prestigious.

[Terry Monohan]

Seems most movies today not only have a moving or still fancy logo at the opening start with sound or silent then just before the movie starts they repeat all the companies again in regular type.

I guess they want the late comers to see who made the film in case they missed the first minute or so, It is annoying and a boring stretch of time used.

In the old days you would only see one logo fanfare at the start. At least they don't do this at the end credits that no one stays around for anyway.

Everyone has some sort of investment in todays films these days and wants a cut of the pie.

The moviegoers can care less once It goes past the Columbia/Sony lady with the torch or the Paramount mountain and the Disney river castle. The new 2oth Century Studio logo is almost the same but Fox is missing.

I always liked the original searchlight Fox spotlight logo with the CinemaScope extension drum roll fanfare. Was so nice to see the movie theatre stage curtains open with that Fox logo in stereo surround 4 track mag sound in the 1950's 60's.

[Ryan Gallagher]

A film auteur's equivalent of the 3'33" John Cage composition would be to release a film of JUST opening cards/animations... and record people's expressions as they slowly figure it out and give up. Then cut that footage together with it as the archive of their experiment.

[Marcel Birgelen]

[Bobby Henderson]

With the exclusive theatrical release window being so brief a lot of people watching these movies will probably see them for the first time via their HDTV screens at home. They'll have a fast forward button at the ready for all the production company logos.

[Mike Blakesley]

The moviegoers can care less once It goes past the Columbia/Sony lady with the torch or the Paramount mountain and the Disney river castle.

Disney is obsessed with waterfalls. Every movie they make seems to contain at least one, especially the animated ones. And what's funny is, a lot of those waterfalls have no apparent source of the water -- it just appears from somewhere and falls over a handy cliff. The Avatar movies have floating mountains with waterfalls coming out of them. The Disney logo has that river, and at some point the camera zooms past the water fall which is coming from...where? The castle? Did everyone flush the toilets in unison?

Although Universal goes one better: They have a waterpark in Orlando called Volcano Bay which features a huge volcano of course.... with a waterfall cascading down it.

Don't get me wrong, waterfalls are exceedingly cool. But, living as I do in a state that features a lot of real waterfalls, it just bugs me to see them used where they don't make sense.

[Lyle Romer]

Disney is obsessed with waterfalls. Every movie they make seems to contain at least one, especially the animated ones. And what's funny is, a lot of those waterfalls have no apparent source of the water -- it just appears from somewhere and falls over a handy cliff. The Avatar movies have floating mountains with waterfalls coming out of them. The Disney logo has that river, and at some point the camera zooms past the water fall which is coming from...where? The castle? Did everyone flush the toilets in unison?

Although Universal goes one better: They have a waterpark in Orlando called Volcano Bay which features a huge volcano of course.... with a waterfall cascading down it.

Don't get me wrong, waterfalls are exceedingly cool. But, living as I do in a state that features a lot of real waterfalls, it just bugs me to see them used where they don't make sense.

Falling water is cool!!!

I never really thought about it but now I'm going to drive my wife crazy noticing the source less waterfalls. Down here in FL, the only way you get a waterfall in most of the state is if there is a pump involved in getting the water to the top.