Highlight Film

Background

Highlight Film was the film division of the Swiss Media company Highlight Communications AG. The subsidiary was merged into a single company, Highlight Communications (Deutschland) Gmbh, in autumn 2004.

1st Logo (October 5, 1989-November 1992)

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Visuals: On a dark space background, a dark teal nebula is seen resembling the cornea of a eye, complete with an iris, as stars zoom by. A couple of seconds pass by before a bright orange orb appears in the "iris", and a four-pointed star expands before the orb disappears and a green orb zooms towards the top right corner of the screen. As this happens, 4 green rectangles appear and zoom out, crossing each other into 1 as a orange orb appears and zooms out. The green rectangles flash out a copy towards the screen and it turns white for a second, with the nebula fading out a bit and turning the border to teal. The orb then glows before transforming in the Earth as a bright red trail zooms out at the top of the screen. It backs up to reveal "highlight" in white and the Earth stops glowing, as another red trail zooms out, retracts, and forms "film" in the same font. As this finishes, the words gain 3D trails and turn red as "präsentiert" zooms out bit by bit as red blobs, in sync with the music before turning to white, then teal. With the last note, the text then flashes, sparkling from left to right, then the other way before the logo ends.

Variants:

• A short version exists on trailers. On the same nebula background, the orb, now in pink, zooms out and the border draws around it as the nebula fades out. The orb then glows and turns into the Earth quicker with both words zooming out at the same time and fill with a yellow hue, before turning to red."präsentiert" wipes in a expanding fashion in red, before fading to the teal. The logo here has a simple shine effect.
• On home video releases, "film" is replaced with "video" and it's now in a videotaped quality.

Technique: Backlit cel animation.

Audio: A dark ambient tune begins the logo with includes a metallic flourish when the green squares form. This turns into a dramatic synth beat, with 5 hard notes in sync with the finish, which is an excerpt from the stock track Higher and Higher by Orange Power.

Availability: The logo was seen on Swiss/German prints of Leon, with the short version appearing on McBain, either appearing at the beginning or as a trailer logo. The Highlight Video variant is seen on Swiss/German VHS prints like The Punisher.

2nd Logo (1990's-2004)

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Visuals: On a space background, the Earth zooms towards the camera before slowing down and turning a bit after the Moon is revealed. Zooming towards Antarctica, the camera pans over the entire planet and zooms out, with a lens flare going behind the Earth. The flare then emerges from it and the Earth turns simplified as "highlight film" appears above. The lens flare then disappears.

Technique: CGI.

Audio: A ethereal choir, with a whoosh going around the Earth and ending with a chime.

Availability: It can be seen on DVDs with some modifications.