ImageMovers
Logoboy95 and EnormousRat
Captures by
Logoboy95, EnormousRat and SubparMario63
Video captures courtesy of
The AVTB Archives and 4R Geo
Background
ImageMovers, L.L.C. was founded as the in-name-only "South Side Amusement Company" in 1984 by Robert Zemeckis. It was officially incorporated as ImageMovers, L.L.C. in 1997. They didn't use a logo until What Lies Beneath and Cast Away were released in 2000. In 2007, ImageMovers and Disney announced a joint-venture to produce motion-capture animated features named ImageMovers Digital, which ended up making two movies before shutting down in 2011 after the financial failure of Mars Needs Moms. In August of 2011, ImageMovers signed a 2-year deal with Universal Pictures, and in 2016, their television division, Compari Entertainment, was founded, with their first production being in 2018, with Manifest (ImageMovers had already produced The Borgias in 2011).
Logo (July 21, 2000-)
Visuals: On a black background, a light shines through the lower-middle-left of the screen. It later dies down, revealing a train that bears a resemblance to the Reading Streamlined Crusader that moves forward, with the text "IMAGEMOVERS" slowly swinging in and stretching underneath the train. When the train gets fully to the screen, the screen flashes, and the text appears fully underneath the train in a gold-silver color, as the train becomes a still image and has the back trains on it turning into filmstrips. The logo slowly zooms out when it is completed.
Variants:
- There is also an early version where the train and text are more brown and silver looking, and the flash is faster, and not as bright.
- On some films, the logo is still.
- On The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio, the logo cuts off early.
- Sometimes, the logo is brighter.
- On 4:3 and widescreen prints of the end of The Polar Express and many films from 2006 onward, the logo zooms out to a much farther distance than usual.
- On 4:3 prints of What Lies Beneath, the logo is overall the same, except the the flash dying down has an additional lens flare, and the "IMAGEMOVERS" text has a more reflective texture to it, as opposed to the flatter texture of the normal text in the logo.
- On Flight, the music and sound effects are slightly off-sync with the logo, making the first major impact of the music take place as soon as the train reaches the screen, as opposed to when the flash dies down.
Print Logo Variants:
- At the end of The Polar Express, the logo is smaller and tinted in gold (like the preceding closing credits).
- At the end of The Walk, the print logo scrolls up with the rest of the credits.
- At the end of The Witches (2020) and Pinocchio (2022), it's still.
Technique: CGI.
Audio: A dramatic fanfare with some train sounds, composed and conducted by Alan Silvestri.
Audio Trivia: The score for this logo appears as the first track of Varese Sarabande's Deluxe Edition reissue of the What Lies Beneath soundtrack, entitled "ImageMovers Logo".
Audio Variants:
- The still version is silent.
- On The Walk, the closing theme plays underneath.