[HN Gopher] How was the Universal Pictures 1936 opening logo cre...
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How was the Universal Pictures 1936 opening logo created?
Author : azeemba
Score : 432 points
Date : 2025-07-31 11:19 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (movies.stackexchange.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (movies.stackexchange.com)
| rwmj wrote:
| Reminds me a bit of the BBC 1 ident from the 1960s-1980s, which
| was a physical model that was broadcast live (not even recorded!)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noddy_(camera)
|
| It was replaced with a custom-built electronic system which was
| itself pretty crazy. One of the COWs came up for sale a few years
| back:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Originated_World
| netsharc wrote:
| Wow! There's a look of the Noddy at the end of this video:
| https://youtu.be/agKiATDgdBs (as well as what the broadcasted
| video looks like before it).
|
| Funny how there are other frames like "Temporary Fault", that
| the camera can point to to inform the audience if there's a
| problem.
|
| The Wikipedia page also mentions how they added "Colour" to
| promote the fact that colour service is available, and how
| people were choosing to remain in B&W because the licence fee
| for colour TV is higher. Meanwhile in 2025 I'm still using
| 1080p instead of 4K monitors because theye're good enough.
| ghaff wrote:
| I had to get a new TV and did upgrade to 4K because it seemed
| to make sense. But hadn't had an urge to do so previously.
|
| I do think a lot of people get obsessed with incremental
| resolution/sound/network improvements that, in practice,
| don't really affect the experience.
| doubled112 wrote:
| I went from a 32" 720p TV to a 43" 4K TV. I don't really
| notice the difference for TV watching. I don't watch a lot
| of TV anyway.
|
| Now a 1080p monitor up to a 4K monitor? That was a huge
| improvement to my experience. It's like having 4 1080p
| monitors without a seam if you get one big enough.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| That's because a lot of broadcasters are either not
| transmitting 4k or encoding their streams in such
| horribly low bitrates that you might as well be watching
| through glasses made from empty beer bottles.
| doubled112 wrote:
| Watching hockey this winter I noticed a big quality
| difference between broadcasters. Nothing that would
| really affect the experience though.
| freeone3000 wrote:
| Contrast Apple TV with YouTube; or Crunchyroll vs
| Youtube. Then step it up to BD. There is _such_ a huge
| difference between 4K "fast", 4K "main", and the 4K
| "high" used on BDs.
| adolph wrote:
| Thank you for posting that video. The wikipedia description
| doesn't quite capture the visual interestingness of the globe
| with concave mirror.
| stavros wrote:
| How does this article not include a video or photo of what the
| logo actually looked like?
| masfuerte wrote:
| It does, third picture on the right.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BBC_One_colour_1969.jpg
| HelloUsername wrote:
| Link to the Twitter thread of 24-may-2020
|
| https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1264630771316404224.html
| brcmthrowaway wrote:
| Why was this on Twitter?
|
| I don't get why nerds interested in a specific niche have to
| post their otherwise excellent stuff there (for clout).
| jeffhuys wrote:
| Twitter is just another blogging platform, but with more than
| half a billion users. So, why not?
| voidUpdate wrote:
| If you aren't signed in, you can't really do much
| layer8 wrote:
| FWIW, that wasn't yet the case in 2020.
| opello wrote:
| It's not like it was only on Twitter.
|
| The thread there mentions a blog[1], that mentions a book,
| which I was unable to find.
|
| [1] https://brighams-
| blog.blogspot.com/2015/06/17-june-2015.html
| stronglikedan wrote:
| Because a great many people do just that to great success on
| that platform. Why wouldn't they want to reach the most
| people possible, regardless of niche? Crazy how people would
| cut off their nose just to spite their face.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > Why was this on Twitter?
|
| Because that's where the eyeballs were. It's really not hard
| once you get over your own hatred for something everyone else
| enjoys. I don't use Twitt...er, X, but I understand why
| others do. Your unwillingness to see the same point is just
| going to continue to be a source of frustration for you.
| bigbuppo wrote:
| Specifically, it's where the technical-creative eyeballs
| were, which is why twitter was such a weird and magical
| place. That and the algorithm that amplified anger at
| outrage, but mostly, well at least partly, it was the
| people.
| BobbyTables2 wrote:
| Didn't realize plexiglass existed in the 1930s!
| jccalhoun wrote:
| Wikipedia says it was first marketed only 3 years earlier so it
| was pretty new
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poly(methyl_methacrylate)
| evaXhill wrote:
| Considering the breakdown of all the elements that went into it
| and the meticulous attention to detail, it's not surprising that
| the creation of this logo took around half a year to complete.
| Golitzen really embraced the Art Deco movement and was also a
| storyboard artist for NANA in 1934, but its hard to find any
| illustrations online, what i can find is a mention of his name in
| a MOMA art/cinema expo from the late 70s
| https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_press-release_327139.pdf
| LargeWu wrote:
| There used to be real craft, based on the physical world, in
| creating that movie magic. It took a lot of knowledge about
| different stuff - materials, photography - to create this.
| pimlottc wrote:
| And still today - most people probably don't realized that the
| Windows 10 desktop background was made using practical effects:
|
| https://gmunk.com/Windows-10-Desktop
| mxfh wrote:
| It's quite a hybrid would count this a in-camera, not pure
| practical. not to this discount this but to encourage mixing
| media. Lots of projection mapping going on which is pretty
| much capturing a digital screen on other surfaces.
| outworlder wrote:
| What's the difference? The Universal logo discussed also
| required compositing.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Still my overall favorite Windows desktop background.
| crazygringo wrote:
| What do you mean, used to be? There still is, more than ever.
|
| You might be surprised at just how many modern effects are
| still practical, not digital.
| LargeWu wrote:
| Fair enough, "used to" is probably not the right qualifier.
| Still, those guys back in the 30's had to be pretty inventive
| to make some of the stuff they did with very limited
| technology. Not to disparage people working with practical
| effects today.
| staticman2 wrote:
| Here's an anecdote:
|
| I've read that the original Fraggle Rock was the last major
| puppet TV production that didn't use computers to supplement
| the puppetry by hiding the strings.
|
| I'm sure the newer Fraggle rock and other newer Muppet shows
| have impressive puppetry but the viewer is further removed
| from the actual craft since the image is computer enhanced.
| mlyle wrote:
| IMO the new Fraggle Rock is outstanding. Lots of practical
| craft.
|
| https://youtu.be/1dkNlkom7MU?si=y4Cm1T3SnXZTbMI-&t=196
|
| Sure, now a lot is teleoperated with servomotors instead of
| with linkages and string. (Letting the people underneath
| the floor focus more on the hands and other things that the
| servos don't run). But practical effects and puppetry have
| always used new technology as it became available.
| mock-possum wrote:
| This may not be 'major TV' but - The Creatures Of Yes might
| tickle your fancy, if you're into practical effects and
| puppetry (and weird vibes)
|
| https://youtube.com/@thecreaturesofyes
| gspencley wrote:
| There is also a misconception that digital vfx are
| necessarily easier, faster and don't take as much skill etc.
|
| My wife and I moonlight as performing magicians. We both love
| horror movies and when I was a child in the 80s / early 90s I
| wanted to do sfx makeup and practical fx for a living.
|
| Around the late 90s / early 00s, the movie industry went
| through this phase where digital vfx / cgi was extremely
| trendy and hype-driven. Kind of like the LLM hype train in
| tech today. Movie studios embraced digital vfx to the
| exclusion of practical for a variety of reasons and with
| mixed results as far as public reception went. Just like with
| LLMs, there was this attitude amongst studios and fx shops
| that digital was "the future." It was driven partly by cost
| but also by the impression that you can do things digitally
| that you can't do practically, or can't do as safely or for
| the same budget.
|
| So during this period we saw a hell of a lot more digital CGI
| and a hell of a lot less practical.
|
| The state of vfx has matured quite a bit since then, and
| there has been a modern embrace of practical fx but not for
| the reasons that people think.
|
| The idea that practical is better than digital is horse shit.
| But so is the idea that digital is better than practical.
| Just like with anything, it depends entirely on what you are
| trying to achieve.
|
| Digital vfx artists are magicians. What they do is not easy.
| Neither are practical fx artists. Both are highly skilled
| crafts and disciplines and most movies today use hybrid
| approaches because it's all about finding the right tool for
| the job at hand.
|
| What gives a lot of us vfx enthusiasts a laugh, is when
| studios boast about doing everything practically because of
| just how much of a bad image the general public has gotten
| about digital fx.
|
| First, they're almost always lying to you. They undoubtedly
| do a lot with practical, but there is still a lot of digital
| vfx going on. But they play fast and loose with what they
| mean by "digital vfx." Is compositing the same thing as CGI?
| Not in a strict sense, but it's still an example of a digital
| effect unless you're filming on film and doing it the old
| fashioned way.
|
| People have it in their mind that digital is always going to
| look artificial, and practical is going to "feel" real. Go
| look at some budget practical fx from the 80s. Some of it is
| brilliant and has aged well, while others looks absolutely
| garbage. That's true for digital as well.
|
| The techniques needed to mature, the computers needed to
| mature and the industry needed to mature. Now a days most
| people would be surprised how much is done with digital vfx
| that they wouldn't have realized, because good CGI is
| invisible CGI. You believe it and don't question it. And
| amazing results are had when practical and digital are
| combined. Which, if I can play loose with the term "digital"
| has actually always been the case since Georges Melies, a
| 19th century magician and early film and vfx pioneer, who
| accomplished a lot of his sfx using a combination of "on
| camera" practical methods and film compositing (what, pre-
| CGI, people would call "camera tricks"). A lot of what is
| done digitally today, takes tricks and concepts that were
| done by hand with film and lets people do it faster and
| easier with software.
| Octo-Shark wrote:
| There's a studio here in Brussels that is similar to the one I
| work in. Very clever and genuinely nice guys I like to chat
| with from time to time.
|
| I was surprised how they did the Logo for Arte a few years ago.
| https://youtu.be/gEWWo5VCQ6A
| Findecanor wrote:
| I think the reflection of the letters must also have been a
| separate shot with no gap in-between the letters and the globe.
| Otherwise you would have seen the backs of letters on the left
| and right through the globe in the final sequence.
| dylan604 wrote:
| It strikes me as funny, because I've been around movie magic for
| so long, that the wizbang grafix abilities of today have nearly
| erased from memory the knowledge of practical FX. I do miss the
| extra features of a nice DVD release with a bunch of BTS clips
| that showed the various movie magic to make the final version.
| I'm guessing studios enjoy not paying for all of that now that
| everyone streams everything and has no time for ancillary
| content.
|
| The Columbia logo is another one that has been updated over the
| years. I've seen writes up about refreshing it back when it was
| an edit bay ruled by tape based playback. Each layer of clouds
| was on a separate tape all played back in sync to generate the
| final comp. Further back, it would have been separate film
| strips.
| mistercow wrote:
| > I'm guessing studios enjoy not paying for all of that now
| that everyone streams everything and has no time for ancillary
| content.
|
| Is it that, or is it just that they realized that that stuff is
| easy material for promoting the film, so they just let various
| media produce free content about it and put stuff on YouTube?
| dylan604 wrote:
| You're saying there's YouTube channels that produce making
| of/BTS content as the same caliber we'd get as bonus
| materials on shiny round discs? I just don't see a YouTuber
| doing something for free over the course of principle
| photography just on the hopes they'd get enough ad revenue
| when they could be churning out other content on a more
| frequent cycle.
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| Doctor Who's original 1960's intro is in a similar vein of "wait
| a minute, how'd they do that in that year?". This predated any
| commercial synthesisers and was mind blowing for its time.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75V4ClJZME4
|
| https://www.effectrode.com/knowledge-base/making-of-the-doct...
| zahlman wrote:
| The theme is much more subtle and complex than my mental model.
|
| I can recall in an electronics lab in university, we had just
| built the first prototype of input and output stages for an
| amplifier, and hooked it up to a function generator playing a
| sine wave and probably a simple paper-cone speaker. The system
| had fairly heavy hyperbolic distortion (as I expected from
| following along with the textbook)... my lab partner (who up
| until that point I'd thought of as not especially bright,
| relative to the standards of the course) listened a bit,
| grabbed the frequency knob, identified a few pitches, and then
| started playing the main melody of the Doctor Who theme
| entirely by ear. (And of course I provided a vocal bass line
| accompaniment, almost instinctively.)
| scottmcf wrote:
| The BBC Radiophonic Workshop was just incredibly innovative. I
| spent a long time learning about them and their techniques as a
| music student.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| The original HBO "Feature Presentation" intro was shot with
| minatures and similar sorts of effects, all before digital/CGI
| existed or was feasible. There's a documentary about it on
| YouTube
|
| https://youtu.be/agS6ZXBrcng
| serf wrote:
| related aside : the 'This Island Earth' MST3K is a great episode,
| which apparently features a part of the effect.
|
| 'This Island Earth' is great all by itself if you're into campy
| early-ish scifi.
| evan_ wrote:
| "This Island Earth" was featured on MST3K: The Movie!
|
| When "Universal International" appears on screen, Mike Nelson
| quips "Doesn't the fact that it's universal make it
| international?"
| CGMthrowaway wrote:
| I love practical effects in cinema
| roughly wrote:
| Someone once described the secret to making magic as putting in
| far more effort than any reasonable person would, such that no
| reasonable person would think you'd done it the hard way.
| genter wrote:
| Penn & Teller, although someone else might've said that before
| them.
| MengerSponge wrote:
| The Prestige says that (in as many words) in 2006. Someone
| probably said it before then.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| The Lawrence of Arabia line is from the 1962 film. Perhaps
| there's an HN'r who knows an earlier variant.
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/1ja9kdy/why_is_the
| _...
| ploxiln wrote:
| Teller, from Penn and Teller, I think
| https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Penn_%26_Teller
| ethbr1 wrote:
| See #2 https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/teller-
| reveals-h...
| yard2010 wrote:
| I would cut my own finger if it's not from prestige.
|
| :)
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| That _theme_ certainly appears in The Prestige, but those
| words don 't to the best of my recollection. I guess I'll
| leave it to you whether that merits a finger cut.
| wcarss wrote:
| It's also (approximately) Lawrence of Arabia; at least the same
| principle.
|
| Lawrence puts out a match with his fingers as a showy trick.
| Someone else tries it, and cries out that it hurts, then asks
| what the trick is. He replies, "the _trick_, William Potter, is
| not _minding_ that it hurts."
| justbees wrote:
| That reminds me of the Ricky Jay article in the New Yorker.
| What an amazing guy!
| https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1993/04/05/ricky-jay-magi...
| It so worth the read and there's no paywall.
| slg wrote:
| It is interesting to see a post like this at the top of HN
| considering the vibe here lately.
|
| The popularity of this post seems to show an innate understanding
| of the value of investing a lot of thought and effort into
| creating a piece of art. When you do that, the process of its
| creation becomes part of the art. There is something incredibly
| human about creating art like this. We have been doing it for
| tens of thousands of years. "Wasting" time meticulously carving
| things out of stone or mixing paint to use on our cave walls. It
| is an inherently human thing to do.
|
| And yet browsing HN most days gives the impression that many tech
| folks see that truly as time wasted and instead just want to give
| some black box a prompt and have "art" spit back out at them. I
| just don't get it.
| nancyminusone wrote:
| Posts like this are the only reason I come here. I've never
| been employed as a programmer or software engineer, have never
| been to California and don't care much about startups.
|
| The "other" category here is pretty wide though.
| autoexec wrote:
| > There is something incredibly human about creating art like
| this.
|
| There's also something a little sad in that it's just one more
| artistic work created as an ad. Advertising has been one of the
| few ways artists have been able to actually make money in this
| world. So much of the artistic creativity and ingenuity of
| humanity has been funneled into outputting lies, manipulation,
| and corporate promotion. I have to wonder what artistic works
| we'd be able to talk about if these artists were able to make a
| living creating something other than marketing/propaganda.
|
| I suspect that AI means fewer artists working on ads and it'll
| probably be a while before companies get sick of just
| regurgitating the history of artistic talent fed into their
| models and start employing artists again to make something new.
| slg wrote:
| While I agree that it would be great if artists had more
| freedom to create whatever they wanted, I think it is overly
| cynical to dismiss commercial art as somehow lesser. I think
| this specifically is a great example of that. It isn't really
| an ad for anything else beyond other art. It doesn't need to
| be as intricate, involved, and for a lack of a better word,
| artistic as it is. The only reason it ended up that way is
| because artists had personal pride in making it. This is true
| for countless pieces of art. Nearly all the music or movies
| people listen to and watch today are commercial art. That
| doesn't make them any less noble than art created by someone
| who has no financial incentive to create art.
| linotype wrote:
| Side note: highly recommend MST3K The Movie, which features the
| classic movie "This Island Earth".
| fortran77 wrote:
| The stackexchange post is a copy of the information in a blog
| which is a copy of the information the this X thread:
| https://x.com/That_Chair_Guy/status/1264632757856198658
| WrongOnInternet wrote:
| Scott Manley made a video talking about what would happen if the
| modern logo was real: https://youtu.be/cBxb6LRFG08
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