Carlton Screen Advertising

Background
Carlton Screen Advertising was the cinema advertising division of Carlton Communications, formed in 1996 after Carlton purchased Rank Screen Advertising from The Rank Organisation. The new company supplied cinema advertising for Odeon and Cineworld, as well as ABC and UCI Cinemas, prior to their respective takeovers by Odeon. In 1999, French cinema operator UGC joined the business following its buyout of Virgin Cinemas; however, its UK business was taken over by Cineworld in 2004.

In 2008, Carlton Screen Advertising's operations were split between the UK and Ireland; the UK business was bought by Odeon and Cineworld and rebranded to Digital Cinema Media, while the Irish business became independent in 2014 and was rebranded as Wide Eye Media.

(March 1997-December 2008 [March 2014 in Ireland])
Visuals:
 * Opening: In a dark setting, there is a pile of coal on the ground, which rests in front of a fire. An iron rod with a star-shaped brand on it plunges onto the coal. Then, several different shots of the fire and rod are shown. Suddenly, the rod thrusts into the screen, causing a multitude of sparks to emit from it as the Carlton logo appears in the centre of it. "Screen Advertising" (in Gill Sans Bold) is shown below. The rod cools down before we cut to black.
 * Closing: The finished result from the Opening version is seen, and as the rod begins to cool down the background fades to black, leaving the Carlton Screen Advertising logo.

Variant: After a few years, slightly different edits were used for both the opening and the closing versions:
 * Opening: Same as above, except an extra shot of the rod from the side suspended in the air is shown before it thrusts into the screen. On some versions, there's an even longer pause on the extra shot before the rod hits the screen, which causes the audio buildup to stop early and echo slightly.
 * Closing: Same as above, except the logo fades in rather than abruptly appearing, and the background fading to black is removed, instead opting to fade out the whole logo.

Technique: Live-action; designed and filmed by Lambie-Nairn, known for creating many other British idents.

Audio: A bunch of sound effects of the iron. Amidst that, a short horn sounder is played, followed by an intense bass synth drone and a deep reversed piano building up in intensity, before a "big bang" and heated fizzing sound plays when the star rod hits into the screen. The closing variant features the heated fizzing sound fading out as a bass drone reverberates throughout.

Audio Variant: In the edited 'regular' variant, extra horns are added in the buildup to the rod hitting the screen. A different crash is heard when the rod hits the screen. Sometimes, the closing variant has a distinct horn sound playing over the bass drone.

Availability: Only seen in UK cinemas until 2008 and in Irish cinemas until 2014. Also seen on foyer tapes from the early/mid 2000s. This was the last Carlton-branded logo, used even 10 years after Carlton merged with Granada to form ITV plc.

Legacy: This logo is infamous for its fiery atmosphere, which scared some moviegoers, especially since it was on the big screen.