Sony Pictures Animation is an American animation studio owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment through their Motion Picture Group division and founded on May 9, 2002. Most of the studio's films are distributed worldwide by Sony Pictures Releasing under their Columbia Pictures label (with the exception of Fixed, which will be distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures through New Line Cinema), while all direct-to-video releases are released by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. In 2001, Sony Pictures considered selling off its visual effects facility Sony Pictures Imageworks but after failing to find a suitable buyer, having been impressed with the CGI sequences of Stuart Little 2 and seeing the box office successes of DreamWorks Animation's Shrek and Disney/Pixar's Monsters, Inc., SPI was reconfigured to become an animation studio. In 2002, Sony Pictures Animation was established to develop characters, stories and movies with SPI taking over the digital production while maintaining its visual effects production.
The studio is well known for the Open Season, Surf's Up, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, The Smurfs, Hotel Transylvania, Goosebumps, and Spider-Verse franchises, and the films Arthur Christmas, The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! (released overseas as The Pirates! Band of Misfits), The Emoji Movie, The Star, Peter Rabbit, The Angry Birds Movie 2, The Mitchells vs. the Machines, Wish Dragon, and Vivo. The company didn't use a logo until 2006, when their first film Open Season was released.
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1st Logo (September 29, 2006-December 2, 2011) | 2nd Logo (November 11, 2011-October 25, 2018) | 3rd Logo (June 24, 2015-October 12, 2018) | 4th Logo (December 1, 2018-) |
Visuals: On a light blue background, some letters come towards the screen out of nowhere. As a "t" jumps forward, a "n" runs by, and an "o" rolls down, an "i" slides while an "a" spins around. Then the "i" comes back, trips, and loses its dot, as the "m" dodges it, hitting the "a". The dot bounces off a ton of letters while the now dotless "i" tries to catch it. Then all the letters bounce back and are revealed to be the letters in the word "animation", followed by the words "SONY PICTURES" dropping down below. The logo slowly zooms out until all the letters fall down.
Variants:
Technique: CGI from Sony Pictures Imageworks in association with Carey Conley from BLT & Associates.
Audio: A fast-paced jazzy fanfare composed by James Newton Howard. When the logo falls apart, a crowd is heard groaning.
Audio Variants:
Availability:
Visuals: On a white background, the company name in a wacky font zooms out and bounce letter-by-letter. They stop when they reach the middle position. An arc is visible in "Animation", separating the blue into two shades.
Variants:
Technique: Stylized CGI.
Audio: Cartoony sound effects from each of the letters:
The sound effects also vary depending on the film.
Audio Variants:
Availability:
Legacy: While it didn't live up to the previous logo's quirkiness, it's still another memorable logo, though it did gain a somewhat bad reputation for its later usage on/association with The Emoji Movie.
Visuals: On a black background, a backlight illuminates some letters. A blue-tinted spotlight then flies over and reveals the text from the previous logo with its shadows bending in response to the light as it dims. It then fades into full color and the spotlight disappears while it slowly animates.
Variants:
Technique: CGI.
Audio: The opening theme of the movie.
Availability: Appears only on three films: Goosebumps, its sequel Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween, and Peter Rabbit, all of which were live-action films with some CGI characters that were not produced by SPA, but released under the label.
Visuals: On a black background, the text (with "SONY PICTURES" in Brandon Grotesque Bold and "ANIMATION" in Arbotek Ultra) flickers and illuminates like a neon sign on a dark blue background. After a few seconds, the text flickers out back into darkness.
Trivia: Two unused concept variants are found on Michael Daniels' website.
Variants:
Technique: CGI, done at Devastudios.
Audio: None or the opening theme of the movie.
Audio Variants:
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Animation logos (Random page) | |||||||||
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Fox Corporation | |||||||||
The Walt Disney Company |
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Bertelsmann | |||||||||
BBC | |||||||||
ITV | |||||||||
Amazon | |||||||||
Comcast |
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Sony Group Corporation | |||||||||
Warner Bros. Discovery |
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Paramount Global | |||||||||
Hearst Communications | |||||||||
Lionsgate | |||||||||
Hasbro | |||||||||
The Jim Henson Company | |||||||||
Corus Entertainment | |||||||||
WildBrain |
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Mattel | |||||||||
Splash Entertainment | |||||||||
9 Story Media Group | |||||||||
Boat Rocker Media | |||||||||
Banijay Group | |||||||||
Sega Sammy Holdings | |||||||||
Studio Ghibli | |||||||||
Toho | |||||||||
Tatsunoko Production | |||||||||
Other |
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Independent |
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