Illumination

Background
Illumination (also known as Illumination Entertainment) is an American film and animation studio founded by Chris Meledandri in 2007 and co-owned by Universal Pictures, a division of its wholly owned subsidiary NBCUniversal.

The company was formed after Meledandri left as president of 20th Century Fox Animation and Blue Sky Studios in early 2007. While at those companies, he supervised or executive-produced movies including the first two Ice Age films, Robots, and Horton Hears a Who!. After leaving, a deal was announced positioning Illumination as Universal's family entertainment arm that would produce one to two films a year starting in 2010. During the summer the following year, Illumination acquired the animation department of the French animation and visual effects studio Mac Guff, and formed Illumination Studios Paris.

The studio is responsible for the Despicable Me, The Secret Life of Pets and Sing franchises, and the movies Hop, The Lorax, and The Grinch. The Minions from the former franchise are the studio's mascots.

(July 9, 2010-)
Nickname: "Minions"

Logo: Each film released by the company has a different variant, but they all involve the Minions (the popular side characters from Despicable Me; usually Kevin, Bob and Stuart) doing a comedic skit in front of, or interacting with, the large stacked text "ILLUMINATION ENTERTAINMENT" (with the former written in Futura Condensed, and "ENTERTAINMENT" in a more conventional version of the same font below).


 * Despicable Me and Despicable Me 2 (ABC airing): A minion from the film peeks out from the right side of the screen, anxiously greeting the audience. Then, all of a sudden, the text appears behind the minion. The minion is clearly frightened by the loud music that plays as it appears, and as the music ends, he stands stunned, and then falls over. He then crawls off the screen.


 * Hop: The text is already formed, and one minion wearing bunny ears and a cotton bunny tail is prancing to the right while carrying an Easter basket and tossing confetti, while a minion in the center of the screen observes in confusion. The bunny minion shows off his costume, but the other minion is not amused.


 * The Lorax: The name looks different. The text is again already formed, and we see two minions cutting down a Truffula tree with a chainsaw. A Barbaloot from the movie then lands on one of them, eating some Truffula berries. The other minion slowly backs away nervously.


 * Despicable Me 2 (most prints): Again, a different design for the text. Two minions stand at the bottom right corner of the logo. The one-eyed minion sings "TA-DAAA!", then the two-eyed minion shoves the one-eyed minion aside and also sings "TA-DAAA!". The one-eyed minion then shoves the two-eyed minion and sings "TA-DAAA!" once again, and then the two minions then start yelling "TA-DAAA!" at each other and start pushing and shoving until the one-eyed minion shoves the other off-screen, and triumphantly yells "TA-DAAA!". The off-screen minion then chimes "TA-DAA!", causing the other to mumble in frustration while glancing out at the audience.


 * Minions: The preceding Universal Pictures logo has a five-Minion chorus singing along with the logo theme, and one minion voice continues to sing the closing high note as the logo fades in, and the five-minion choir is standing below the already-formed text, and the one in the center is still singing the high note as the others watch. The center minion finally runs out of breath and falls flat on his face, then weakly holds out a hand for the others to lift him up, but quickly puts it back down as the other minions exchange glances.


 * The Secret Life of Pets (prototype): A minion is seen teasing a puppy by squeaking a ball. He continues until a group of dogs comes in, and one starts to bark. The minion then throws the ball, but the dogs instead start chasing the minion offscreen. Then, a chihuahua runs after the group of dogs, barking until it goes offscreen. This variant did not make it into the final movie.


 * The Secret Life of Pets (final version) and Despicable Me 2 (NBC airing): The background fades in from black. Bob walks in from the right, scatting a tune. After a little while, the text "MIN" and "ION" (perhaps not coincidentally, the word "Minion") turns on and flashes briefly, while the light above the "I" in "MIN" glows. The rest of the text turns on the same way. Bob gets excited, shouts the company name twice, and squees.
 * A version that starts where he says the company name was seen on the shorts The Secret Life of Kyle and Minion Scouts.
 * There is also another version without the "ENTERTAINMENT" text.
 * Another one exists without Bob, which was seen at the start of four short films (Mower Minions, Norman Television, Weenie, and Yellow is the New Black) and the end of Minions Holiday Special. This version is still.
 * On the first trailer for Minions: The Rise of Gru, it starts where Bob squees.


 * Sing: Another different text design. 4 minions are shown. The one on the very right plays a harmonica, then sings "La" notes. He then sings the company name and the other minions join as the chorus, whilst raising their arms in the air. The one on the left screams it with a crazy look, and holds it for so long, the "MIN" and "ION" lose power and turn off. He stops and looks at the text. He looks at the screen, and says "Whoops!" as the other minions stare in disappointment.
 * On the trailers and TV spots, we see 3 minions in the center laughing. Also, they looked pasted on the template rather than added in.


 * Despicable Me 3: Three minions are seen. The one in the middle is holding a flower in a vase. The left minion clears his throat and tries to say the company name, but the middle minion knocks him out with a vase. He tries to do the same, but the next minion hits him with a hammer. Bob comes by with the fart gun from the first two movies. The other minion successfully says the name, and then questions the fart gun, to which Bob sprays gas. The minion faints in disgust. Bob then says the name and chuckles. The fallen minion farts on Bob and he shakes his hand in disgust.


 * The Grinch (trailers):
 * The text is off. Bob turns a flashlight on as if he's saying the name in that manner, laughing maniacally afterwards. The text suddenly turns on and he runs off in fear.
 * The text appears above at first. One of the minions is seen with a party blower, who is hitting the minion in the distance. He then grabs the minion with the blower, pushing him as they move out and the text drops down.
 * The logo is covered entirely in snow, with snow also falling throughout. Three minions are seen wearing Christmas outfits as they play with tambourines, while one of the minions plays in the snow, shouting out the company name as he sticks out his tongue. This is also seen at the start of the Minions Holiday Special.


 * The Grinch (the film itself): Bob is on the right side of the screen, holding a sparkler, and says the name. Snowball the rabbit from The Secret Life of Pets (voiced by Kevin Hart) drops down from the top of the screen and yells "Yeah, Illumination!", and startles Bob as pyrotechnics suddenly spray over the logo's stage, burning Bob's feet. Then some sprinklers turn on, dousing the flames and covering Snowball in water. After Snowball says "Oh, man.", Bob gives his sparkler to Snowball, and the logo's text brightens up the screen to start the movie.
 * On 16:9 prints of the film, this variant is in Open Matte.


 * The Secret Life of Pets 2: A ball bounces under the logo. Six dogs pull Stuart, who is yelling "Stop-ah! Stop-ah!" at them. The dogs crowd at the ball and Stuart smiles. As the ball bounces off, the dogs face the direction, and Stuart screams "Uh...Illumination!" before he gets pulled away, the dogs barking as they do. The logo then cuts to black.


 * Sing 2: The animation is completely different compared to the other ones. As the lights turn on, we see a closeup of Stuart, Bob, Kevin, and a load of other minions. They then sing the company name as they clap along while the camera slowly zooms out to reveal the text above. At the last second, the "ILLU" and "A" in the name abruptly lose power (a mirrored reference to the previous film's variant) as the screen turns off.


 * Minions: The Rise of Gru (second trailer): Stuart is riding on a disco ball, and it destroys "ILLU" and "AT" in the text.


 * Minions: The Rise of Gru (the film itself): It’s almost the same as the second trailer, but there are and  lights on the disco ball. After the text is knocked over, the disco ball hits the company name and Stuart gets lodged between the text, reading “MINION”. The opening theme also plays over the logo, which continues into the start of the film.

Variants:
 * On the first two trailers for Hop, there's a short version of the Despicable Me variant in which it just shows the minion peeking in, but the text is already there.
 * Some trailers lack the minions, such as the Minions and Sing trailers. Also seen on video games based on Illumination films. This version is also still.
 * Starting with Sing, the name is three-dimensional.
 * Starting with the second trailer of Despicable Me 3 and the film itself, "ENTERTAINMENT" is removed.
 * On the web short film How to Draw Minions (2020), the logo is inverted (black text on a white background) and in 2D as a 2D version of Bob jumps on the right.

FX/SFX: The minions and the text, animated by Illumination themselves. None for the still versions.

Music/Sounds: Just the minion(s) (voiced by Pierre Coffin) making noises or saying/singing the company name. On the Despicable Me variant, a loud, bombastic three-note fanfare is heard as the logo appears, kinda sounding like the Viacom "Wigga-Wigga" logo. None or the opening theme of the trailer for the still versions. On How to Draw Minions, the opening theme of the short is heard.

Music/Sounds Variant: There used to be a version of the Despicable Me variant on the company's website that removes the footstep sound effects from the Minion, the fanfare sounds a little different and is louder and a little more bombastic, and the sounds when the Minion falls and crawls off-screen are different. The Minion's sounds are still the same, though.

Availability: Common. Seen on all of the company's films. Formerly seen on Illumination's website. The prototype variant for The Secret Life of Pets is unused, and can be found on Facebook.

Editor's Note: This logo has gained notoriety for its constant use of Illumination's mascots, the Minions, and opinions will vary wildly based on whether you find the Minions charming or annoying. The Sing 2 variant is generally considered the best even by those who dislike the other logos, however, and some think it should become the main logo on future films. Some have also proposed that the Minions could be absent, and have some other Illumination characters (doing what the Minions did in the prior films) substituting them for a few releases.