Avco Embassy Pictures
James Fabiano, Sean Beard, Eric S., Jess Williams, Matthew Anscher, Supermarty-o, Mark Edward Heuek and indycar
Captures by
Logoarto
Background
In 1967, film producer Joseph E. Levine sold Embassy Pictures to Avco Corporation, an aviation equipment and financial services company, reincorporating it as "Avco Embassy Pictures Corporation". In 1976, Avco Embassy sold their broadcasting division to Multimedia, Inc., who renamed it to Multimedia Entertainment.
In January 1982, when acclaimed TV producers Norman Lear and Jerry Perenchio acquired Avco Embassy Television and dropped "Avco" from the name, the film division followed suit, becoming Embassy Pictures.
Logo (March 18, 1968-February 12, 1982)
Visuals: After a rectangular iris-in, three copies of a stylized "AE" (consisting of a right triangle, a rectangle, and three striped horizontal vertical lines, or the Avco empennage logo with 3 striped rectangles on the side forming an "E") float in a circular pattern. The logos are red, green, and blue, and they eventually merge to form a white version of the logo. This one changes colors one shape at a time; the triangle turns blue, and each of the other shapes turn green. Below, three copies of the message "AN AVCO EMBASSY FILM" (red, green and blue) come in from the left, right, and bottom and merge under the logo to form a white version of the words.
Variants:
- An in-credit variant exists with "Avco Embassy Pictures" in the font used in the credits, as well as "presents" below. Above is an outline of the Avco logo (without the "E").
- An inverted variant was spotted on the 1983 Australian PBV Video release of They Call Me Trinity. It's unknown whether this appears on other releases of the film.
- A black and white variant was spotted on a re-release of The Witch.
- A blue background variant exists, it's unknown where it was taken from.
- A brighter variant exists, it's also unknown where it was taken from.
- Some film prints have the logo highly distorted to fit the entire screen. The inverted version also falls under this.
Technique: Motion-controlled animation.
Audio: Usually silent, but other times, the opening theme of the movie is used.
Audio Variants:
- Some films use a dreamy string tune such as In Praise of Older Women, Murder by Decree, City on Fire, Phantasm, and Death Ship.
- A high-pitched and repeating synth riff ending with a six-note synthesized tune was heard on certain movies like The Old Curiosity Shop, Permission to Kill, Sidewinder One, Go Tell the Spartans, and Wacky Taxi.
- On the 2006 Anchor Bay Entertainment DVD release of The Seduction, the Embassy Communications logo theme is mistakenly used. This may be due to a reverse-plastering error.
Availability:
- Seen on The Producers, Swamp Thing, The Howling, The Fog, Vice Squad, City on Fire (1979), The Seduction, The Exterminator, Scanners, Target, The Ruling Class, the original Time-Life Video and Vestron Video and later HBO VHS releases of Go Tell the Spartans, and pre-1998 prints of The Graduate (the 1987 Embassy Home Entertainment and 1987 Nelson VHS releases of the latter have no logo).
- It may have been on older prints of Dead and Buried, but no evidence has shown up as of yet.
- Sometimes, as seen on The Graduate, They Call Me Trinity, A Nice Girl Like Me, and Woman Times Seven, the Avco Embassy Television logo plasters this or the previous logo on the Magnetic Video releases.
- For ITC films that the studio distributed, the logo is removed on the Magnetic Video release of The Cassandra Crossing, but is preserved on the Magnetic Video release of The Tamarind Seed.
- The in-credit references were also preserved on the Avid Home Entertainment release of Farewell My Lovely, a surprise considering that Avid usually removed or replaced references to other companies with the then-current ITC logo, which precedes the Avco Embassy in-credit opening screen on this release.
- This logo is also seen on most of the studio's films from the time frame when they are aired on Antenna TV.
- On streaming copies of The Producers, this logo is plastered by the current StudioCanal logo.
- It may have been seen on original theatrical prints of the original Prom Night, but it is unknown if it's preserved on the British Embassy Home Entertainment VHS release.
- It also appeared on the U.S. theatrical and 1983 Warner Home Video VHS release of Watership Down, but most newer prints of the film either cut straight to the opening prologue or have the Janus Films logo.
- Weirdly, the logo is retained on Roadshow Home Video's release of Phantasm (known as The Never Dead in Australia), despite Roadshow typically stripping logos from most of its home video releases.
- This also appeared on the 1994 VHS of Carbon Copy (other home media releases omit this logo).
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Avco Embassy Pictures |
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