First Release Home Entertainment (Australia)/Summary

Background : First Release Home Entertainment was a sublabel of the Australian branch of Columbia TriStar Home Video (formerly RCA/Columbia Pictures Hoyts Home Video The company released tapes in The Netherlands as well.

1st Logo (1989-1995)
 Nicknames : "Laser Shooting Stars", "Neon Star"

 Logo : On a black background, a star shoots across the screen with a laserlike pink line trailing behind it. Then, two stars shoot across the screen with green and yellow lines trailing behind them. Another star shoots with a red line. After that one more star shoots with a blue line, forming an abstract pattern. Then, the middle of the pattern is illuminated, and it looks like a blue star. Four stars then fly near the big star, with red, yellow, pink and green trails. A flash occurs and the words "First Release" in a Times New Roman font with "HOME ENTERTAINMENT" fading in below, in a plain sans serif condensed font, with a line separating between it appear under the resulting star.

 FX/SFX : The stars shooting across the screen, the flash, and in the variant, the fading.

 Music/Sounds : An extremely catchy techno ditty with a few laser sound effects.

 Availability : On old Aussie and Dutch PAL tapes. Check ebay.com.au or ebay.nl! The company mainly distributed B-Movies, such as low-profile titles from Columbia, TriStar, Hoyts, Cannon and New Line, among others. One tape that had this was Look Who's Talking.

2nd Logo (1995-1999)
Logo : On a night-sky background, we see a comet like object movie about the screen which forms a five pointed star as the camera zooms back. The inside of the star fades out leaving just the outline as five comets come towards the star. Four of the comet stop before the star but the fifth one movie to the bottom of the screen and explodes as a fireworks display. The remnants of the fireworks form the same letters from the previous logo (in the same style and font).

FX/SFX : The comet forming the star, the fireworks. A nice blend of CGI and 2D animation.

Music/Sounds : A soft choir when the star is forming followed by a deep bass note when the letters are revealed.

Availability : Seen on all First Release VHS from this time period, such as The Fifth Element.