About Columbia's Sunburst/Abstract Torch logo...

Something I've wondered about Columbia's Sunburst/Abstract Torch film studio logo (the back half, of course, of which was used for CPT at the same time [that being the Sunburst condensing into the Abstract Torch on an orange crescent; the film version was slower and had the AT on a blue crescent]):

Why did the bottom part of the Sunburst (the bottom 13 rays) have more defined, brighter white edging coming off those bottom 13 rays, while the top didn't? Is it because the bottom part was what was condensed from the Sunburst, and the top was the Abstract Torch that went into the blue or orange crescent?

 

I'm thinking because it was a ****y film optical and they didn't care.

Bear in mind you're looking at a video transfer made from film. If they had had the technology to do it digitally (or even from video) back then, it would have looked a lot cleaner. The logos in this era were done at Editel/Hollywood (no longer around), and the technology back then was pretty primitive.

We struggled with a lot of the Columbia logos back in the day, particularly when they would flare out and dissolve into a second logo. Those always looked weird to me from film negative, which is one of those things where some things look better from print or IP.

Note that the modern Columbia Pictures logo had to show six steps at the bottom of the frame. Don't ask me why, but they always insisted on this.

 

Is it me, or does the woman on the newer Columbia opening logo look like comedian Margaret Smith?

 

Some Spanish say the the Columbia woman's eyes look a bit oriental since the mid 1990's. Having watched Gattaca around a hundred times I haven't noticed anything except for the use of my fellow Spaniards to badmouth or criticize almost everything.

 

One thing you may not have considered here-- as you see the Sunburst condensing into the Abstract Torch, doesn't that contraction look like somewhat of a sunset?