Skylight Pictures (Canada)

Background: Skylight Pictures Inc. (formely known as Skylight Visual Pictures Inc.) was founded in 1943 by Roger Daves, Kevin Welder and Michael Soren on Canada. First they produced 16 films with the defunct company Frettern Pictures, along with the company's Swingin' Brothers shorts, then made a short hiatus during 1950, and at the next year they released 818 Destinations, which made the company famous. On 1965, it was reorganized with the current name, after merging with the television company Small Sister Productions. The company was then sold by drink company Dawn Soda by $200.000 as a result. Shares from Dawn dropped as PSN adquired 80% of the company's own shares in 2011, which currently owns the largest part of it.

1st Logo

(1943-1947)

Nicknames: "The Sun I", "Skylight Sun"

Logo: We see the sun on the clear sky, then "SKYLIGHT VISUAL PICTURES INC. PRESENTS" fades in.

Variants:

A closing variant exists with the words "A SKYLIGHT VISUAL PICTURES INC. FILM" replacing the opening text.

For 2010- releases of Skylight Early Hall Of Fame DVDs and Blu-Rays by 1st Leader, the logo was colorized with the sun and sky in their original colors and the text black.

FX/SFX: Nothing too much. Just the text fading on a live-action clip.

Music/Sounds: A simple horn sounder. Some films feature the opening theme of the film.

Availability: Scarce. It first appeared on the company's first film with Frettern, A Night Without My Ghost: A Scientifist Story, which is now released in color by 1st Leader. The B&W version was found on 1979-2009 home video releases of that film, which are now hard to find. Currently seen on Swingin' Brothers short reruns on CMC and GLOW Classics. It can also be found on TeleNative HV releases and 1st Leader-owned channels reruns of their first films. There's 13 films made by the company that include it, and all of them follow the 1932-1947 Frettern Pictures logo, so it may be a more easier find.

Scare Factor: Minimal. The sun might be too bright for your eyes.

2nd Logo

(1947-1949, 1951-1977)

Nicknames: "The Sun II", "Skylight Sun II", "Brightening Sun", "Cloudy Sky"

Logo: On the cloudy sky, we see the sun. Then, "Skylight Visual Pictures, Inc. presents" wipes in. The clouds go away, making the sun shine on the whole sky.

Variants:

On Technicolor releases, the logo is in color.

On CinemaScope releases, the logo was in widescreen and the words "a CINEMASCOPE production" or "a CINEMASCOPE picture" are seen below the words, with "CINEMASCOPE" in its the familiar font.

Starting with the Swingin' Brothers short "The Trial" in 1957, "presents" is not seen.

On 1958-1965 Swingin' Brothers shorts, after the sun starts to shine completely, the screen gets divided and at the 2nd half, a red carpet background appears. The show's title and actor names fade in below.

On CinemaScope 55 features, a combination of the 1957 and CinemaScope 55 variants are shown, but "CinemaScope 55", in it's familiar font replaces "CINEMASCOPE".

Due to the name change in 1965, "Skylight Visual Pictures, Inc." is replaced with "Skylight Pictures".

The last film featuring the logo, Storm, has it playing in reverse.

FX/SFX: Same as before, but there's a different clip and the text wipes in.

Music/Sounds: Same as before. The logo can be ocassionally silent.

Availability: Uncommon. It can still be seen on broadcasts of classic Skylight movies and shorts on CMC, TCM, and Galaxy, including 1947-1975 shorts of Swingin' Brothers on CMC and occasionally on ACTV, among other channels. The last film to feature this logo was Robing Dreamer's Storm. Dream Journal originally featured the CinemaScope variation of the logo, but was plastered with the 4th logo on all later prints and home video releases of the film. This logo's also seen on extremely early pre-Pond Canadian prints of Hillbilly Dragons movies, these being the 1977 VHSs of Hillbilly Dragons: We're Watching The Center Of The Film! and Hillbilly Dragons Meet Nothing.

Scare Factor: Same as before.

3rd Logo

(1959-1970)

Nicknames: "In Grande 70", "That Skylight Logo Without The Sun"

Logo: A flash occurs, then we see a coliseum's window from the interior. We zoom out to see the entire interior part of it, and then the gold text "Skylight Visual Pictures, Inc." (1959-1965) or "Skylight Pictures" (1965-1970) are revealed. The words "GRANDE 70" in a wide font zoom out and stop below the company's name.

Trivia: Grande 70 was Skylight's brand for their 70mm Todd-AO-shot films. It was advanced for the time, but then in 1970 Skylight retired the brand and started producing some of the first films in IMAX in 1971.

FX/SFX: Of course, this is one of the earliest 3D-animated logos. It was confused by CGI for some contemporary logo viewers due to it's 3D-style, but actually this was made with models, because computer animation wasn't possible at the time. The animation of the camera and texts were animated using cables, and the camera was moved up so the cables of "GRANDE 70" weren't visible. Pretty advanced for the time and still holds up well since the 50+ years it was used.

Music/Sounds: A majestic fanfare or the opening theme of the movie.

Availability: Rare. Most films containing this logo are famous so they're easier to find on HV releases. Appears on every Grande 70 film, including Empire On Fire and Looptic, which are the first and last releases with the brand.

Scare Factor: None to low. May surprise some but it's not very scary.

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