Lean-M

Background
Lean-M (a.k.a. "Lean-M Producers Center") is a Russian-based television production company that was founded in 2000 by producers Timur Weinstein, Vyacheslav Murugov, and Oleg Osipov. On February 8, 2007, Sony Pictures Television acquired a 51% stake in Lean-M. On April 13, 2009, SPT acquired another 16%, and in 2010, SPT acquired the remainder.

1st Logo (August 23, 2004-December 27, 2005)
Logo: In a white square, we see black "ЛЕАН" with a red triangle on the bottom of "Л", which is placed below "продюсерский центр". The triangle is connected to a red line which connects to a black square with "tV" ("М" since 2005).

FX/SFX: None, unless you count the logo scrolling with the credits.

Music/Sounds: The closing theme of the show.

Availability: Seen on first 5 seasons of Soldiers and the second season of Afromoskvich.

Editor's Note: None.

2nd Logo (August 16, 2005-)
Nicknames: "Cardiogram", "Lean-M EKG"

Logo: On a black background, a glowing orange cardiogram line is drawn in and "ЛеанМ" ("LeanM") in a scraggly angular handwritten font wipes in. At the same time, a two-colored rectangle bar extends below, consisting of a gray part with the words "продюсерский центр" ("Producer center") in black and an orange part with "ЛЕАН-М" in white. Then the logo ripples, blurs and shrinks horizontally, and "представляют" ("present") wipes in from the left and shines.

Variants:
 * On Tourists, the "представляют" part is set in a different font.
 * When the logo appears after the end credits, the "представляют" part is cut out.
 * At the end of the Russian adaptation of Everybody Loves Raymond named Voroniny and the Russian adaptation of The King of Queens named Newlyweds, the logo glitches and distorts than usual. This variant only appears on earlier episodes; later episodes have the normal logo.
 * On Happy Together (Счастливы вместе) and Glubokaya Bay, the logo is in warp-speed.

FX/SFX: The cardiogram line and the logo forming. Nice CGI.

Music/Sounds: An electronic screeching sound, followed by an array of laser zaps and a downtempo tune. On earlier episodes of Voroniny, the last second of the theme is cut off.

Availability: Common in Russia.


 * First seen on Tourists (Туристы), the 6th season of Soldiers (Солдаты) and the 2nd season of Students (Студенты). Later, it was seen on several Russian sitcom shows and movies, including the long-running show Voroniny (Воронины).
 * It was also used on their website in 2007 on the "intro page" where you could select between visiting the "viewer's portal" or the corporate website of the Lean-M company itself.
 * Since 2010, the logo is followed by the SPT logo (and since 2016 by the Sony-SPT combo) when being placed in the ending credits. This variant can be seen on later episodes of Voroniny and on Cipher (Шифр).
 * Most of the recent Lean-M productions have an in-credit mention instead, however, the logo was recently spotted at the beginning of their recent TV productions made for NTV: Alien Flock (Чужая стая), Glubokaya Bay (Бухта Глубокая) and The Criminal Doctor (Криминальный доктор).

Editor's Note: None.

3rd Logo (December 11, 2007; January 17, 2008-September 15, 2009; May 17, 2012?)
Nicknames: "Cardiogram II", "Lean-M EKG II", "Lean-M Off the Edge of Your Seat"

Logo: On a black background, we see a small light ping on the left pulsating. When the long beep is heard, the light becomes a cardiogram line as a straight line, then the heartbeat monitor draws almost identical zig-zags like in the first logo; on the third time, the line forms the word "ЛеанМ" ("LeanM"), in a glowing ghostly white, but less grungy and smoother font, and the two-colored rectangle from the previous logo, also with a ghostly white glow, appears. Once they fade out, the word "ЛеанМ" ("LeanM") suddenly reappears instead of "представляет" ("presents"), but larger. After a few seconds, the name fades out quickly, ending the logo.

Variant: A short version with the full logo already formed was seen on some of the trailers of their movies.

FX/SFX: The cardiogram line, and the logo forming.

Music/Sounds: A series of high-pitched beeps from a cardiogram with deep ambient sounds in the background, a longer beep representing a flatline, a camera flash sound for each time the heart monitor drawing zig-zags, a mish-mash of a fiery whoosh, an electricity zap and another whoosh during the appearance of "ЛеанМ", an ambient drone accompanied by another beeps from a cardiogram, a very loud explosion, a la the 1st Epic Music Video logo, when "ЛеанМ" reappears and the sound of a woman breathing.

Availability: Appeared at the beginning of their films: После жизни (Afterlife) (2008), Человек, который знал всё (The Man Who Knew Everything) (2009) and the first 2009 trailer to Если бы да кабы (If Yes If Only) (2012) (it's unknown if it appeared on the movie itself however).

Editor's Note: The dark atmosphere and borderline jump-scare at the end have been known to rattle some viewers.