Weston Woods

Background

Weston Woods is a production company founded in 1953 by Morton Schindel, that produces animated short films and audiobooks based on well-known children's books. The company was acquired in 1996 by Scholastic. The company is based in Norwalk, Connecticut.

Contents

1st Logo (1954-1996)	2nd Logo (September 21, 1996-)

1st Logo (1954-1996)

Visuals: On a black background, three green stylized trees appear, with two blue "V"s connected together, from the left to right tree, resembling a "W". The lowercase words "weston woods presents" or "a weston woods release" are below.

Variants:

For the "presents" variant, said word can be either beside or below "weston woods".
Sometimes, a copyright symbol is placed after "weston woods".
A filmed version exists.
On early shorts, the text reads "produced by morton schindel at weston woods studios weston, connecticut, u.s.a.".
A black and white version can be found on Millions of Cats.
An early version of said variant has "connecticut" shortened to "conn."

Technique: A still graphic.

Audio: None, or the closing theme of the short film.

Audio Variant: On 16mm prints of the Harold and the Purple Crayon short, the opening theme is heard.

Availability: Seen on early Weston Woods shorts (including those from Gene Deitch/Rembrandt Films) starting with their first short film, Andy and the Lion. It was also spotted on 16mm prints of the Harold and the Purple Crayon short; VHS and DVD releases remove the logo.

2nd Logo (September 21, 1996-)

Visuals: On a black background, the stylized trees from before, now slightly amended and in a darker green color, zoom up. Then, a flash occurs in the middle of the trees, turning the middle section into a sky blue "W". The words "weston woods presents" or "a weston woods release" fade in below.

Variant: Starting in 2011, the logo is in widescreen and it is enhanced.

Technique: 2D animation.

Audio: A whimsical folk theme, which is carried over from the music used on the Scholastic logo. This was composed by Ernest V. Troost, and was previously featured on their 1994 adaptation of Amazing Grace.

Audio Trivia: An extended version of this theme would later be used as the background music to an intro used on later Scholastic Video Collection and Scholastic Storybook Treasures DVDs.

Availability: Seen on many Weston Woods videos and DVDs, starting with Harry the Dirty Dog. The 2003 variant can be seen on their later videos and Cinedigm DVD releases.

External links

Weston Woods Studios on Wikipedia