Internacional Video Sistemas

Background: IVS (Internacional Video Sistemas) was a video distributor based in Pamplona (Navarre), Spain. It was mainly devoted to the distribution of cartoons and movies for kids, though they had an early cinema collection as well (for instance, some Valentino's films). At some point, it was one of the most prominent distributors in the country.

1st Logo (1980-Mid 1980's)

Logo: On a blue background, a red dot appears in the upper left corner and then starts moving space-by-space around the screen while changing multiple colors. When it circles around the screen perimeter, it then moves to the center, stopping as a yellow dot while the background wipes away in a iris-out effect. This reveals a black background with a thick yellow bar, along with a line below it. The bar has the segmented text "ivs" with the dot in the center of the screen. Above the logo is the plain white text "DISTRIBUIDO POR" and below it is "PAMPLONA".

Technique: The dot going around the screen and the iris-out effect. Very basic and plain animation.

Music/Sounds: A soft jazz tune with bongos and string instruments, becoming a loud, cheesy sounding orchestral fanfare when the logo wipes in. It's silent at the end of tapes.

Availability: Extremely rare. Has been seen at the end of the Spain VHS printings of Love Brides of the Blood Mummy, El Secreto de la Momia Egipcia, and Braccio di Ferro contro gli indiani, also known as Popeye, Brazo de hierro.

2nd Logo (Mid 1980's)

Logo: On a dark blue background, a red dot zooms in to the bottom-left and quickly starts forming a big white lowercase "i", followed by a "v". An "s" comes spinning from the right as the dot places itself on the "i" and turns white as well. Then a large red TV tube-like oblong zooms out from the upper middle of the screen, finishing the logo after bouncing a bit. After a couple of seconds, the logo flips to the left to show the warning screen.

Technique: Simple 2D computer animation to form the logo.

Music/Sounds: A playful piano and xylophone tune.

Availability: Seen on their VHS tapes from the era.

3rd Logo (Late 1980's-Early 1990's)

Logo: On a blue space background, a rotating sparkling globe (a CASCOM stock footage) fades in. Just then, at the same time, a twisting filmstrip showing some images from films shows up from the right as a rotating (faster than the globe) red sphere with white "ivs" written throughout comes from the left. The strip keeps twisting and flipping, moving from one side of the screen to another, as the sphere orbits the globe and zooms out to the center of the screen, totally covering it. Then two light blue lightning bolts appear from the left and the right and collide in a spark ("Electro Charge II" (#403), a CASCOM stock footage), with a flash ("Electro Burst" (#405), a CASCOM stock footage) that causes the globe to disappear. The strip stops its movement in the center of the screen, fades out besides the ivs logo, and that zooms in to the center to form the finished logo. The lightning bolts go off twice behind it as well.

Trivia: The strip contains four still pictures: The top one depicts a woman (Ingrid Bergman?) on a B/W film, the second one is the red IVS logo, the third is a cartoon boy (presumably Jim Hawkins) finding a treasure and the fourth is a view of a city (London?).

Technique: All the flipping and twisting, which is all CGI.

Music/Sounds: A rhythmic synth tune with lasers going off, which is actually an abridged "Flash", by Keith Mansfield, which was used as the theme of the pilot of the show Press Your Luck, and in Thorn-EMI's Australian logo, the Muppet Home Video logo and the GVI Video logo.

Availability: Rare. Found on VHS tapes from this company.

Legacy: The logo does seem to be showing some sort of armageddon, which can unnerve some with that and the dated effects. However, the music is cool.