Production logos are often used as a brand, to market the quality of a movie, what genre it represents as well as signifying to the viewer who funded the film. These are used by a wide range of entertainment media companies, TV studios, film makers, studio theatres and animators. Production Logos are often seen at the beginning opening credits of a movie, if not always, and they play an important part in marketing what theme the movie will be about. For example, Walt Disney movies, are generally U certificate, PG or 12, it’s almost a natural order of film making that this company will not make or produce something with a 15 or 18 cert, which may follow more mature themes. The type of movie they market will be suitable for a young audience or for families, therefore, when an audience see’s their brand at the opening of the movie, they are comforted in the knowledge that the movie can be viewed almost universally by all ages.
Although, production logos are not just used for the consumer alone, companies need the opening films for advertising space for themselves. If the slot at the opening of films or at the end were not available to place the logo it would reduce the marketing and advertising advantage for the entertainment business, therefore it is a necessity. However, most movies usually show a production logo at the beginning rather than the end.
There are many production logos that are established and represent that the director or the filmmakers have had money put into the making of their movie, these are the likes of MGM, 20th Century Fox, Warner Brothers, Walt Disney pictures, Universal, and many more. These are all successful and longstanding giants above the likes of Pathe, Ealing studios or the BFI. Initially the graphics for a Production Logo would be represented by a cinematic theme, e.g. 20th Century Fox have searchlights which sweep, as would be the characteristic of a Hollywood red carpet party. On the other hand, with MGM, although the lion does seem random, it is representative of when viewing entertainment were Circuses where lions were a main attraction; beneath the lion the image is a theater mask again referring back to visual entertainment. These images refer back to examples of visual and theatrical entertainment, and therefore the graphics are not random but make references to what the branding is about. However the trend is different today, production logos are more about the company, rather than what they represent, Pathe on the other hand has a rooster which is the graphic for the logo brand. DreamWorks although successful and established, is a young studio company founded in 1998 in comparison to the likes of MGM and Fox Light. The graphic of the boy with a fishing rod sitting on a moon crescent in the sky, this may seem as if this does not represent TV or film entertainment, however the use of this was to follow the current trend into CGI, many movies were beginning to use computer generated images for movie making. The founders of DreamWorks therefore wanted to characterise this. Hence the name and the logo do fit, although it may seem initially that the usage could seem random.
Furthermore, pre 1990’s production logos were often ‘still’ images, however, as film making advances, production companies are under pressure to keep up with viewing habits. 20th Century Fox now have moving searchlights, Pathe now have an animated logo, where the name ‘Pathe’ is on a string, and as it turns the shadow is that of a rooster. However, Pathe when founded in 1908, was a production logo used not for entertainment, but for broadcasting news. However in current years, has made the move to producing and funding films, particularly less mainstream quality movies. It is now a strongly advocated company in regards to film making and has earned its position amongst the ranks of more Hollywood and LA based film studios.
As you can see with the MGM logo, the competition, year on year increases for movie makers, and for studios, they have continuously evolved their logo’s to keep up with trends and cinematic technology. As you can see below, MGM, which had a ‘moving’ production logo of a lion roaring, has become over time colourful, as filming moved forward from black and white motion pictures to colour, and now today from standard filming to computer generated images. Here you can see how their logo has evolved, and will continue to as technology in filming continues to evolve too.
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