The Classic Universal Studios Logo

I've been on a kick during Quarantine Theater over the last couple of months, re-watching the classic Universal Horror films on Blu-ray. Many of them are preceded by the iconic Universal late 1930s/1940s "rotating silver ball with stars" logo and the bombastic brass fanfare, and I started examining it closely and wondering, "how the hell did they shoot this thing?" I came up with several possible schemes, but imagine my surprise tonight when I discovered that a graphic designer, Tim Dickinson, has a complete explanation of how this logo was done on Twitter.

First, the logo itself...

 

And here's his notes...

This is Alexander Golitzen, famed Art Director, who worked at Universal for over 30 years. With new owners behind the studio, the biplane that had circled the Earth since 1927 was dropped. Golitzen embraced the Art Deco movement, using plexiglass for its replacement.




The differently sized spinning stars were filmed first, using the thinnest plexiglass. The top was coated thinly with a silver-activated zinc sulfide - highly reflective, and often used in x-rays and cathode ray tubes.



The stars were independently rotated with several lights (two of which were moving, circling the stars) and a very tight camera aperture so that the lights and reflection of the stars would travel down their length.



The resulting footage looked like this:




The next job was to join the stars to the globe...

 

The globe had an interior coating of the same phosphor, diluted by half, limiting its reflectivity. It was painted black, eliminating its transparency. The first pass of the image was made without the lettering, with the globe in front of a 6 foot front projection screen.




The footage of the stars were projected on top of the globe, creating the spectacular light patterns reflecting off of it.




The following pass used a second globe - larger, polished and painted jet black. This globe had the company lettering mounted to it, and was then mounted on a metal rod, rotated by hand.




Special Effects artist John Fulton photographed the spinning globe at a low angle with the self illuminated lettering at high speed (estimated 32 frames per second).




This image was then triple printed over the original globe footage, the first pass to create the reflection of the title, the second pass was shot with no lights on the globe or lettering.

 

The background was a rear projection screen. This created a silhouette of the globe that was used as a matte in which to overlay the final layer -- the actual title.



The creation of this logo took around half a year to complete.



Jimmy McHugh created the Universal fanfare that accompanied this logo until 1947.



According to Golitzen, the globe was later seen, covered in smaller spheres, as the ‘Interociter’ device in the Universal movie ‘This Island Earth’ (1955).



-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And again, I thank Tim Dickinson on Twitter for sharing this info. Who knew that something as simple as a 14-second 1937 movie logo would take six months to create?

Here's a link to the original Twitter discussion...

Tim Dickinson on Twitter

 

Thanks for all your work on this. Very interesting.

 

This Island Earth is a great movie, quaint in these times, but very well done, as was your research.

 

That is fantastic! Thank you for that explanation and those posts Vidiot.

 

That was fascinating, thanks.

Now a 9 year old kid can do this on his phone.

 

I've always loved that logo the best for Universal. Thank you for taking the time to share this with us.

 

Fantastic! Thank you Vidiot!

 

Wasn't there a gag in the Marty Feldman/Michael York comic opus "The Last Remake Of Beau Geste" using this logo?

 

Yes! Marty Feldman either took it apart on purpose or accidentally. Here's a clumsy YouTube clip of the opening...

 

When I think of how many times this image has been futzed with, satarized, morphed-into something totally-different, and revamped altogether, I'm surprised the logo itself hasn't starred in its' own feature fil,.

 

Thanks!

 

I wonder how many films used "throwback" intros.

I found 2:

"The Great Waldo Pepper" (1975) uses the airplane circling the globe intro.

"Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid" (1982) uses the art deco fanfare.

Here all of them:

 

That's what I said: a talented kid could screw around on his or her laptop and do this at home with After Effects. Although the 1937 design itself had a lot of very cool style and good taste, and you only get that with a lot of experience.

I know about the one used for Xanadu in 1980 only because I worked on the film (one of two roller disco movies I worked on that year that crashed and burned big-time):



And yes, that is the classic 1967 Invaders alien flying saucer orbiting the Earth at the very end.

 

But my all-time favorite Universal logo has to be this one:



That's the classic Jerry Goldsmith Universal fanfare (rearranged by James Horner in the late 1990s), accompanied by the Minions. I can't see the Universal logo today without singing the Minions part with it. "Ba-ba ba-bah-BAAAAAAAAAAH!"

 

I've watched the opening many many times....wow that is really cool to know how it was created and shot on film.

Thank you Vidiot for breaking it down and sharing with us!

 

Cool Vidiot! I've never seen that. It must be one of the high points of the movie along with "All Over The World".

*Gulp*...I've only seen clips of Xanadu, but never the whole thing.

This might actually be the time for me to watch it!

 

Always wondered how they did my favorite Universal logo of all time. Thanks!

 

Yep,that's the one!

 

Xanadu is a really bad film, but it's got some good music and some good moments here and there. I really like the short Don Bluth animated sequence set to ELO's "Don't Walk Away," which is really nice. I would say there's 20 minutes of good stuff in the movie... but unfortunately it's 96 minutes long.

 

I think it was made for kids and teenagers. I saw it when I was 10 and I had no idea of what was supposed to be a good or bad movie. I loved it and I still listen to the soundtrack often. It's pure bubble gum nostalgia and and Gene Kelly gives it some gravitas. I also had a gigantic crush on Olivia.

 

I liked Xanadu but I like Gene Kelly. I don't think that the primary audience for Xanadu back in 1980 knew or cared much about Gene Kelly, who was 68 at the time and was his last movie roll.

Here is a synopsis...

Xanadu follows the journey of a magical and beautiful Greek muse (Terpsichore) Kira, who descends from the heavens of Mount Olympus to Venice Beach, California in 1980 on a quest to inspire a struggling artist, Sonny, to achieve the greatest artistic creation of all time – the first ROLLER DISCO! (Hey, it's 1980!)

As previously mentioned, it might have been aimed towards teen audiences, but Olivia Newton John was 32 years old at the time and disco was on its last legs.

The artist in the movie, paints the large reproduction of record covers that record stores like Peaches woud display as album art outside of their stores.

Still, it is a fun movie and one that co-inspired the Razzies.

 

Yep. But Minions (2015) basically stole the idea from Pitch Perfect (2012)

When I saw the Minions opening, I thought: "Wow, shameless"


Pitch Perfect Universal Opening

..and Pitch Perfect 2, released some weeks before Minions, has a similar "a cappella" rendition of the Universal fanfare.

Universal Goes A cappella for 2nd Time!