Illumination

Background

Illumination (also known as Illumination Entertainment) is an American film and animation studio founded by Chris Meledandri in 2007 and co-owned by Universal Pictures, a division of its wholly owned subsidiary NBCUniversal.

The company was formed after Meledandri left as president of 20th Century Fox Animation and Blue Sky Studios in early 2007. While at those companies, he supervised or executive-produced movies including the first two Ice Age films, Robots, and Horton Hears a Who!. After he left, a deal was announced positioning Illumination as Universal's family entertainment arm that would produce one to two films a year starting in 2010. During the summer the following year, Illumination acquired the animation department of the French animation and visual effects studio Mac Guff, and formed Illumination Mac Guff (now Illumination Studios Paris).

The studio is responsible for the Despicable Me, The Secret Life of Pets and Sing franchises, and the movies Hop, The Lorax, The Grinch, and the upcoming The Super Mario Bros. Movie (in association with Nintendo Pictures). The Minions from the first title are the studio's mascots.

(July 9, 2010-)

Despicable Me and Despicable Me 2 (ABC airing): Stuart the minion peeks out from the right side of the screen, anxiously greeting the audience. Then, all of a sudden, the text appears behind him, flashing brightly. Stuart is clearly frightened by the loud music that plays as it appears, and as the music ends, he stands stunned, and then falls over. He then crawls off the screen.
- On the former film's Blu-Ray, if you select the "Gru Control" option, the preceding Universal logo and the Despicable Me variant are seen on a screen that Gru turns on, with a bunch of Minions underneath cheering. Throughout the logo, the scene cuts to the antagonist Vector on a couch switching the logo to "Vector Channel" which annoys Gru and the group of Minions. As the logo is shown, at the point where the text shines and startles the Minion, Gru and Vector repeatedly switch in between the Illumination logo and the Vector Channel, and Vector's head is then frozen by the Freeze Ray from the film off-screen. The Minions cheer one last time as the camera pans into the screen, and the titles appear.
- On the first two trailers for Hop, there's a short version of the Despicable Me variant in which it just shows Stuart peeking in, but the text is already there.

Hop: Stuart stands in the centre, staring at the camera. He then looks depressingly at Dave, wearing bunny ears and a cotton bunny tail and prancing to the right while carrying an Easter basket and tossing candy. Dave stops in front of Stuart and shows off his costume, but Stuart is not amused. Dave tosses some candy at Stuart's goggle, chuckles nervously and takes off the ears, and Stuart looks back at the camera.

The Lorax: The text looks different. We see Stuart attempting to cut down a truffula tree with a chainsaw, while Tom observes. Lou the Barbaloot from the movie then falls out of the tree, due to it's shaking from the chainsaw, and crushes Stuart. Tom slowly backs away nervously from Lou, who is eating some truffula fruits.

Despicable Me 2 (most prints): Again, a different design for the text. Minions Stuart and Tom stand at the bottom right corner of the logo. Stuart sings "TA-DAAA!", then Tom shoves him aside and also sings "TA-DAAA!". Stuart then shoves Tom and sings "TA-DAAA!" once again, and then the two minions then start yelling "TA-DAAA!" at each other and start pushing and shoving until Stuart shoves Tom off-screen, and triumphantly yells "TA-DAAA!". Tom then chimes "TA-DAA!" off-screen, causing Stuart to mumble in frustration while glancing out at the audience.

Minions: The preceding Universal Pictures logo has a five-Minion chorus singing along with the logo theme, and one minion voice continues to sing the closing note as the logo fades in, revealing the five-minion choir, and Stuart, the minion in the centre, is still singing the note as the others watch(except for one who stares at the camera depressingly). Stuart finally runs out of breath and falls flat on his face, then weakly holds out a hand for the others to lift him up, but quickly puts it back down as the other minions exchange glances.
- On the theatrical trailer for Sing, it shows the part where Stuart falls.

The Secret Life of Pets (prototype): Stuart is seen teasing a puppy by squeaking and pretending to throw a ball. He continues until a group of dogs come in, and one of them barks at Stuart. Stuart then realizes he is being mean to the puppy and throws the ball, chuckling nervously, and the puppy goes after it, but the dogs instead start chasing him offscreen. Then, a chihuahua runs after the group of dogs, barking until it goes offscreen. This variant did not make it into the final movie for unknown reasons. This is also the first and so far only variant in which a minion does not look at the camera.

The Secret Life of Pets (final version) and Despicable Me 2 (NBC airing): The text is nowhere to be seen. Bob walks in from the right, scatting a tune. Just then, the text "MIN" and "ION" (perhaps not coincidentally, the word "Minion") turns on like a large neon sign and flashes briefly, while the light above the "I" in "MIN" glows. The rest of the text turns on the same way. Bob looks at the text and is amazed. He then turns to the audience and shouts the company name twice before squeeing excitedly.
- A version that starts where he says the company name was seen on the shorts The Secret Life of Kyle and Minion Scouts.
- There is also another version without the "ENTERTAINMENT" text. This can be seen on a trailer for The Secret Life of Pets 2.
- Another one exists without Bob, which was seen at the start of four short films (Mower Minions, Norman Television, Weenie, and Yellow is the New Black) and the end of Minions Holiday Special. This version is still.
- On How to Draw a Minion and Saturday Morning Minions, the logo is inverted (black text on a white background) and remade in 2D. Like The Secret Life of Kyle and Minion Scouts, it is cut.
- On the first trailer for Minions: The Rise of Gru, it starts where Bob squees.

Sing: Four minions are shown, Bob, Stuart, Mel and Kevin. Kevin plays a kazoo, then sings some "la" notes. He then sings the company name and Mel and Stuart sing with him in the form of a barbershop quartet, whilst raising their arms in the air, and their singing makes the text glow. Bob, who doesn't get the idea, sings the name in a crazy off-key yell. His yell gives the text too much glow, causing "MIN" and "ION" to lose power and blackout. Bob sees what he did, looks at the screen, and says "Whoops!" as the other minions stare in disappointment.
- On the trailers and TV spots, we see Stuart, Kevin and Bob in the center laughing. Also, they looked pasted on the template rather than added in.

Despicable Me 3: Three minions are seen, Kevin, Stuart and Mel. Kevin clears his throat and tries to say the company name, but Stuart knocks him out with a vase. He tries to do the same, but Mel hits him into the floor with a hammer. Bob comes by with the fart gun from the first two movies. As Mel begins to say the name, he stops to question the fart gun, to which Bob sprays gas, causing Mel to faint in disgust. Bob then successfully says the name and chuckles. The unconscious Mel farts on Bob and he shakes his hand in disgust.

The Grinch (trailers):
- The text is off. Bob turns a flashlight on and says the company name in a dark manner, laughing maniacally afterwards. The text suddenly turns on, scaring him away.
- The text appears above at first. Carl is seen in the distance, blowing a party blower to Kevin, who is close to the camera and annoyed by the blower. He then grabs the end of the blower, pulls Carl towards him and shoves him off-screen. He moves out, the text drops down to the centre and Bob is heard saying the company name.
- A spotlight turns on, revealing Bob, who gets joined by Stuart and Kevin. The camera zooms out as the minions notice some small eyes outside the spotlight, which frightens them. Another spotlight turns on, revealing the eyes to belong to Max, Gidget, Duke and Snowball from The Secret Life of Pets. Behind them, they notice a sparkling yellow twist, and yet another spotlight turns on, revealing Gunter from Sing. Suddenly, the spotlights turn off, and the camera pans to the Grinch from his self-titled movie, having pulled the plug to the spotlights. He connects it to another cable, turning on a giant neon sign shaped like his movie's logo off-screen. The camera zooms out to reveal it. Bob walks in from the left, and the sign turns into the text. The Toho Cinemas emblem drops in and bonks the Grinch on the head. As Bob says the company name, the emblem picks him up, and carries him off-screen, transitioning to the Toho Cinemas logo.
- The background, even the text, is covered entirely in snow, with snow also falling throughout. Stuart and Kevin are seen wearing Christmas outfits as they play with tambourines, while Bob plays in the snow, shouting out the company name as he catches snowflakes on his tongue. This is also seen at the start of the Minions Holiday Special.

The Grinch (the film itself): Bob stands on the right side of the screen, waves a sparkler and says the company name. Suddenly, Snowball the rabbit from The Secret Life of Pets (voiced by Kevin Hart) drops down from the top of the screen and yells the name. He then sets off some pyrotechnics over the logo's stage, burning Bob's feet, while Snowball laughs maniacally. The pyrotechnics trigger some sprinklers, dousing the flames and covering Snowball in water, much to his dismay. Bob gives his sparkler to Snowball, making him feel better, and they look at the camera. The text then brightens up the screen to start the movie.

The Secret Life of Pets 2: A red ball bounces under the text. Six dogs on leashes run at the ball, dragging Stuart along. The dogs crowd at the ball and Stuart smiles and chuckles with relief. As the ball bounces off-screen, the dogs face the direction, chase it down and Stuart screams the company name as he gets pulled away, the dogs barking as they do.

Sing 2: The animation is completely different compared to the other ones, and so is the text design. A light clunks on, and we see Bob leading Stuart, Kevin, Otto, Mel and countless other minions in a song involving the company name. The minions clap along as they sing. The camera slowly zooms out until we see the text above. Right after the minions finish their song, the text turns off, and "MIN" and "ION" (a mirrored reference to the previous film's variant) are visible for a split-second before the screen turns black.

Minions: The Rise of Gru: Stuart swings past the text on a disco ball, calling out the company name as purple and blue lights follow. As the ball swings around, it knocks out some of the letters and Stuart loses control and falls off. When he gets back up, he notices the remaining letters spell "MINION". He turns to the camera excitedly and stutters "Min-min-min-", before the disco ball swings back into the frame and hits "ION", pushing it into "MIN" and crushing Stuart between them, thus creating "MINION". Stuart then says "Minion...", muffled.
- On the second trailer, the lights are removed, and is cut short to the letters being knocked out.

Other Variants:

The still version and some trailers lack the minions. Also seen on video games based on Illumination films.
Starting with Sing, the name is three-dimensional.
Starting with the second trailer of Despicable Me 3 and the film itself, "ENTERTAINMENT" is removed.
Sometimes, the logo cuts in and out instead of fading in and out.

FX/SFX: The minions and the text effects, which varies by film or short, are animated by Illumination themselves through their animation studio in Paris, Illumination Mac Guff (now known as Illumination Studios Paris).

Music/Sounds: Just the minions (voiced by Pierre Coffin) making noises or saying/singing the company name (on the Minions & More variants, this rarely happens). On the Despicable Me variant, a loud, bombastic three-note fanfare is heard as the logo appears, kinda sounding like the Viacom "Wigga-Wigga" logo, composed by Heitor Pereira.

Music/Sounds Variants:

None or the opening theme of the trailer for the still versions.
On Saturday Morning Minions, only Bob's voice is present.
There used to be a version of the Despicable Me variant on the company's website that removes the footstep sound effects from the Minion, the fanfare sounds a little different and is louder and a little more bombastic, and the sounds when the Minion falls and crawls off-screen are different. Stuart's sounds are still the same, though.
Sometimes, the opening theme plays over the logo, while the minions talk and the sound effects play.
On the Norman Television variant (for Minions & More 1), a rock tune is heard.
On the Forces of Nature and Santa's Little Helpers variants (also for Minions & More 1), a calming guitar tune is heard. The same tune is heard on the Wagon Ho and Binky Nelson Unpacified variants (for Minions and More 2).

Availability: Current and common. Seen on all of the company's films.

The variant formerly seen on Illumination's website is extinct as the website rebranded around 2016.
The prototype variant for The Secret Life of Pets is unused, and can be found on Facebook.
Also seen on trailers, the game Despicable Me: Minion Rush, and the web short film How to Draw a Minion (2020).

Legacy: This logo has gained notoriety for its constant use of Illumination's mascots, the Minions, and opinions will vary wildly based on whether you find the Minions charming or annoying. The Sing 2 variant is generally considered the best even by those who dislike the other logos, however, and some think it should become the main logo on future films.