Gullane Entertainment

Background

Gullane Entertainment is the name of Britt Allcroft's production company formed to produce Seasons 6 and 7 of Thomas and Friends and the film Thomas and the Magic Railroad. Gullane also owned other franchises, such as Sooty, Fireman Sam, and Art Attack. The company was acquired by HiT Entertainment PLC in 2002.

1st Logo (July 14, 2000)

Nicknames: "The Seagull", "Seagull with Ocean", "The Seagull that Helped the Ocean" "GULLane"

Logo: A seagull flies over the ocean, which is lit by sunset, then the seagull takes high and turns into metallic blue shadow. Over the seagull is a gold circular line draws itself. Then metallic GULLANE PICTURES in Helvetica font, appears and shines right to the seagull.

FX/SFX: The animation of a seagull and an arc, the shine.

Music/Sounds: Just sounds of seagull squawking and metallic screeching.

Availability: Only appears on Thomas and the Magic Railroad.

Editor's Note: None.

2nd Logo (2000-2002)

Logo: We see a seagull flying towards the sun over the ocean. Suddenly it goes off the screen and rippling letter G appears over the sea surface, quickly taken into the turquoise box with GULLANE written below. The gull returns and blasts into the logo, appearing still over G letter. As it flies, ENTERTAINMENT adds below, and the sea is replaced with gradient color, same as in the box, but lighter.

Variant: On Eckhart, only the end of the logo is shown. On the voiceover variant, once the logo finishes animating, it fades to black and the white URL www.planetgullane.com fades in on a black background.

FX/SFX: Mostly the gull, the ocean and the box.

Music/Sounds: Same as the first logo.

Music/Sounds Variants: On at least three Sooty DTV VHS tapes, there is a male voiceover announcing: "Gullane Entertainment - Entertaining Familes Worldwide!"

Availability: Rare. Appears on all Thomas and Friends VHS tapes and DVDs over the timeframe, immediately following the Anchor Bay or VCI logo. It also appeared on an extremely rare Japanese Thomas VHS called A Wonderful American Journey with Thomas and Connie. Outside Thomas the Tank Engine, this logo appeared on the Art Attack VHS tape Monsters and Other Scary Stuff, UK airings of Eckhart, and three Sooty Direct-To-Video programmes, titled Sooty's Magic Show, Sooty's Magic Club and the extremely rare Sooty's Magic Birthday Party. Even though Gullane was involved with those two shows, this logo does not appear on either Sooty Heights or Sooty 2001, they instead use the Sooty Limited and Granada logos.

Editor's Note: None.

3rd Logo (2002)

Logo: On a sky blue background, A BRITT ALLCROFT COMPANY PRODUCTION in Copperplate Gothic zooms out, until it reaches a comfortable distance, then the Britt Allcroft logo in gold quickly writes itself.Underneath, for in a generic sans serif font quickly fades in, before the Gullane Entertainment print logo in white zooms in, which bounces for a few seconds. Then, a copyright disclaimer (© Gullane (Thomas) Limited 2002) in a serif font fades in.

Variant: On early prints of Thomas & Friends season 6, the Gullane Entertainment logo just fades in.

FX/SFX: The zooming, and the script writing.

Music/Sounds: Usually the ending theme of the show, but, on Thomas & Friends: Building the New Line for the PC, the sounds of an engine puffing, three distorted dings, and various steam whistles are heard.

Availability: Very rare. The regular variant appears on early prints of Season 6 of Thomas & Friends, early Thomas DVDs like The Fogman and Other Stories; the variant appears on the Thomas PC game, Building the New Line. More recent DVD prints of Thomas & Friends Season 6 plaster this over with the 2001 HIT Entertainment logo.

Editor's Note: None.