Carlton Cinema

From the Audiovisual Identity Database, the motion graphics museum


Background

Carlton Cinema was a British digital film television channel, launched on 15 November 1998 by Carlton Television on the ITV Digital platform. It was also launched on cable as an evening-only replacement for Carlton Select in March 2000. After ITV Digital collapsed in May 2002, and negotiations with BSkyB to make the channel part of the Sky line-up failed, Carlton Cinema closed down on 31 March 2003 (the last Carlton-branded television network to do so, five months after Carlton went off the air in the London region).

ID (15 November 1998-31 March 2003)


Visuals: Two main versions of the logo are known to exist:

  • Classics: On a black background, a bronze abstract "C" shape with a normal bold "C" attached to it and a thinner "C" cut out of it, pans out. As it turns and settles in front of a midnight city background, light shines through it and "CARLTON CINEMA" ("CARLTON" being the company's logo) appears below. The light continues to shine on the "C".
  • Thriller: The "C" is silver with a greenish glow, and shines more as it simply zooms out on a black background. The channel name then appears below.

Variants:

  • An almost still shot of the logo was often used when introducing a film-related program.
  • The closedown variant had a red theatre curtain closing in, with only the channel name appearing and the website URL on the bottom right.
  • An Easter variant had the "Thriller" variant of the "C" in sea blue in front of a golden curtain background with Easter eggs made out of sparks on it.
  • At the end of the channel's final broadcast day (31 March 2003), an almost still shot of the "Thriller" variant with a bluish glow was first shown for 30 seconds. Then, after a farewell montage showing various films that aired on the channel, a steel blue theatre curtain appeared closing in and revealing a golden version of the logo with the date of launch on the top and the date of closure on the bottom.

Technique: CGI.

Audio: An orchestral-type beat with an announcer afterwards.

Audio Variants:

  • The still variant only had the announcer.
  • On the final broadcast day, "You'll Never Know" by Alice Faye was heard under the montage and logo sequence.
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