Hokushin Audio Visual

Credits

Descriptions by
Lisa12971 and katola520

Captures by
Lisa12971

Editions by
Michael Kenchington

Video captures courtesy of
swedishintros and precert

Logo (1979-1984)

• 

  Red variant

• 

  White variant

Visuals: On a white background, two red lines wipe in towards the middle of the screen from opposite directions of each other, peaking to make two small mountains that form an "M". A "V" then slides downward from the top of the screen and lines up with the "M", resting within the middle gap. Underneath, "VIDEO MOVIES" appears one by one in a stylized sans serif font, with the 1st "V" and "M" having a curled line to their left side, and a red line wipes in below. Finally, the byline "from Hokushin" appears below as a small size, slowly growing in size before stopping after a second.

Early Variant: Originally, the background was red, the logo was gold, and "from Hokushin" was white.

Technique: Cel animation.

Audio: A trumpet solo with a loud brass stinger near the end. This was the same fanfare used to open and close newscasts on the Italian broadcaster Rai 1 (TG1, or Telegiornale 1) from 1976 to 1992 (though the fanfare would be higher pitched on those newscasts in its later years). Both variants have a voiceover.

• The voiceover in the early variant has a man with a Maltese accent (Joe Gatt, the company's founder) and mentions that the VHS is a "special arrangement of the producer and the distributor".
• The later one has a voiceover in which a man with a British accent is reading over a VHS legal disclaimer.

Availability:

• Seen on 1970s-1980s UK VHS releases of Gregory's Girl, For the Love of Ada, Q: The Winged Serpent, The Buddy Holly Story, Queens of Evil, Going Steady, Shark's Cave, No Place to Hide, Sex Diary, Island of Death, Evil in the Deep, Fatty Finn, Lemon Popsicle, Loose Shoes, Jungle Burger, and Mean Streets.
• It also appears on the 1984 UK pre-cert VHS release of the 1979 TV movie Willa as well.