UCI Cinemas

Background

UCI Cinemas (also known as United Cinemas International) is an international cinema chain formed in 1988 as a joint venture between UIP and United Artists Theatres. AMC Theatres was initially announced as part of the venture, but they withdrew from the UK market that December. Initially focused on building cinemas in the UK and Ireland, they eventually expanded worldwide to other countries like Italy, Germany, Brazil, China, Iceland, Japan and Taiwan.

UCI was one of the first cinema chains to use a digital projector (which at the time cost a hefty $130,000), which allowed them to download movies via satellite and play them on digital media discs instead of filmreels. In 2004, UCI's European division was purchased by Terra Firma Capital Partners, who had then-recently purchased Odeon Cinemas; as a result, the majority of theaters using the UCI name, as well as its sister brand thefilmworks, were rebranded under the Odeon name. Irish cinemas still used the UCI name, albeit heavily marketed through Odeon, until 2013.

Today, UCI operates only in Germany, Italy, Portugal, and Brazil, and is currently owned by the Odeon Cinemas Group except for Brazil, where they are still operated by National Amusements, who also acquired UCI's Brazilian operations in 2004. In 2016, AMC acquired Odeon Cinemas Group and re-entered the British and European cinema markets once again.

1st Logo (1989-1994)

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Visuals: The intro begins with the Earth from outer space while text appears such as "No Smoking", "Aisles Clear", "Valuables Secured", "Silence Please", "Activate Surround Sound", "Refreshment Centre Open", "Projection. Lights. Action" and "Emergency Exits Illuminated", with a green check-mark symbol placed on the right of the text. The Earth later zooms closer and it first shows a bridge in a river-like setting with an explorer fighting a ninja. Then it fades to a city with a green monster scaring the audience. After that, it fades into a woman dressed in a skirt, then a detective smoking and then the cameramen. After that, a projector is shown while the ball that holds the projector turns into the Earth zooming into Europe with UCI's locations at that time. After that, the globe fades into an animated forest with critters and a woman sleeping. After a frog jumps into the lake, it later gets chased by a shark. The water later pans up to a military base with aircraft flying by it. Then, a small orb rises from above the scene transitioning into a giant orb, then the small orb spins around the "UCI" wordmark while the text "United Cinemas International" fades in at the bottom of the logo. The small orb later stops spinning and the byline "A Paramount (with the Paramount text being in its font type)/Universal Company" appears on the bottom of the UCI text, while a line starts spinning through the ring until it hits the small orb and shines until it fades to black.

Technique: A mix of live-action footage, traditional animation, and CG animation, all done by Cinema Concepts.

Audio: A space fanfare, followed by a series of score tracks matching the various film genres. A triumphant cinematic fanfare begins playing about halfway through, and resumes as the logo forms. The theme softens a bit just before the logo ends.

Availability: It may be in the hands of a few British film technicians, or on foyer tapes.

2nd Logo (1994-2000)

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Visuals: On a black background, a light flashes through a sphere and reveals a dark, misty background. The sphere is revealed to be inside the "C" of the UCI logo, now with "CINEMAS" in between two thin rectangles on its top and bottom, with all the text being in silver with reflections going from right to left. A light blue ball also spins through the letters similar to the last logo, albeit with no ring. The ball whizzes for a bit until it starts to go a little off-track, spinning farther to the left. It then starts to get even more intense, going closer to the screen and twisting its angle slightly. This gets more twisted in the next spin, which sees it disappear to the bottom-to-center-right of the screen until it pops up again in the center-left, passing behind the UCI logo before going straight at the middle of the screen and crashing onto it, leaving a dark red explosion with lots of particles which fly then disappear. When they do, all that is left is a black background with "MORE OF AN EXPERIENCE" shining the same way as the UCI logo. The text then fades out.

Variants:

• Later on in the mid 90s, UCI changed its slogan to "THE GREAT ESCAPE", and the bumper was changed accordingly.
• A shorter version exists which was seen at the end of adverts for UCI, which showed various aerial shots and POVs. The bumper was seen at the end, but the ball doesn't go nearly as off-track as in the normal bumper, only two spins then coming back to its original place after leaving a trail and forming "MORE OF AN EXPERIENCE" at the bottom of the screen, then staying close to the UCI logo while spinning around it like it did at the start. The DTS & Dolby Stereo Digital SR logos can be seen on both bottom corners of the screen respectively.
• A looped version of the logo exists at the end of one of UCI's foyer tapes, filling the rest of the space left in the tape before it ends. The logo loops back to the light flashing over and over in the loop.

Technique: CGI.

Audio: The sequence starts with a single synth note which then develops into a five-note theme; there is also whooshing that grows louder and an explosion sound when the comet crashes into the camera. The whooshing is mixed in stereo, so it would be heard all around the cinema as the orbiting became more intense.

Availability: It was seen on UCI's advert/trailer reels at the time of its usage, but was replaced with the next logo in the beginning of the 2000s.

3rd Logo (2000-2004)

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Visuals: Against a gold background, there are the letters "UCI" rotate in various camera angles while a white light flashes from the letters. Once the letters have centered themselves, the light pulls back and then forms a ring across the letters. This ring then creates a gold oval, which rises up to encase the letters while a green planet and red orbital ring move into position, the ring fading in through the letters. In addition, a segmented planet resembling the Central Television "Cake" logo appears inside the "C". The Paramount/Universal byline fades in underneath the letters, and the completed logo holds for a few seconds before fading out.

Technique: CGI.

Audio: An airy fanfare which ends with a one-note string-synth sounder.

Availability: Used before adverts and trailers during its final years.

4th Logo (2000s?)

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Visuals: Unknown.

Technique: CGI.

Audio: Unknown.

Availability: These logos were seen at the end of TV spots for upcoming movies which aired on Telecine during the early 2000s.

5th Logo (Brazil, Unknown)

Visuals: On a black background, the camera switches between various shots of the green ball quickly going through the ring in the UCI logo. The oval and text can be seen in a few of the shots. One shot is a shaky tracking shot of it rapidly traveling through the ring as the camera follows behind. Another shot, this time stationary, albeit panning, and in slow-motion, shows it turning a curve and going into the camera, and another one is a stationary shot of the ball rapidly speeding through the ring three times from right to left. The last animated shot of the logo is a still close-up of the UCI logo, more specifically at the top of the I, where the ball finally slows down and rests in place. The sequence then fades onto a 2D shot of the UCI logo at the top (with no Paramount/Universal byline underneath, so the UCI wordmark fills the empty space that would otherwise be filled by the byline), with the url "www.ucicinemas.com.br" in a white Arial font underneath. The camera then fades out.

Technique: CGI, for the most part.

Audio: A loud, bombastic, orchestra-styled fanfare, along with loud whooshes from the ball speeding along the ring. The music ends when the ball stops on top of the "I". The last few seconds are silent.

Availability: Until a few years ago, around the late 2000s-2010s, it used to be seen on all of UCI's cinemas in Brazil (except for UCI Kinoplex and UCI Orient) as the first thing on the screen before the policy trailer, but it is currently unknown if it still can be seen today.

6th Logo (We Make Movies Better) (2021-)

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Visuals: It is essentially the same as the 13th AMC Theatres logo, but it is shortened to 30 seconds, all instances of the AMC logo are replaced with UCI, there are subtitles for Nicole Kidman's dialog, and a clip from A Star Is Born that is not in the AMC version is shown. The final screen shows the UCI logo on a backdrop of blue lines, with the white text "WE MAKE MOVIES BETTER" below. The logo shines.

Variant: Shorter 15-second variants exist. Both the 30 second and 15 second variants can show different movie clips, Unknown.

Technique: Same as the 13th AMC Theatres logo.

Audio: Same as the 13th AMC Theatres logo.

Availability: Current.