Castle Home Video (UK)

Background : Castle Vision, later Castle Home Video, was the video imprint of the English independent record label Castle Communications, which went defunct in 2007.

1st Logo (1987-1992, 1999)
Logo : Against a live-action sky background, a white grid can be seen with its tiles advancing forward. This scene then zooms out to reveal that it takes place on a rich lilac-colored background. Once it's zoomed out all the way, the words "CASTLE" and "VISION" on black squares in cyan can be seen above and below the sky/grid scene respectively. The sky/grid scene then splits in two and a flash of bright light appears in the middle of the screen, causing the logo to disappear and leaving just the background when it dies down.

FX/SFX : Early 80's graphics

Music/Sounds : A synth-timpani plays throughout. When the sky/grid scene begins to zoom out, a harsh distorted guitar drone begins playing. When the flash of light appears, both the timpani and the guitar stop and a loud, dramatic orchestral sting plays.

Music/Sounds Trivia: The guitar drone from the logo is later used in the 1991-1993 opening of the main Russian news program, Vesti. (0:16)

Availability : Should be available on all tapes with the Castle Vision label from 1987 to 1989, including videos of TUGS, Alvin and the Chipmunks and The Raggy Dolls. Also appeared on some later releases, including You've Been Framed! from 1991 and used in tandem with the 5th logo on the 1999 release of Children's Sing-a-long Favourites - immediately following the 5th logo (9:02)

2nd Logo (1989-1999)
Logo : On a black background, a teal square with a blue, stylized, slightly slanted portcullis appears. Below the teal square are the words "CASTLE VISION".

Trivia : The stylized portcullis is the same as the print logo for Castle Communications PLC, only colored blue.

FX/SFX : None.

Music/Sounds : None.

Availability : Should be available on most Castle Vision releases from the late 1980s and across the 1990s. This logo was used in tandem with the 5th logo for some releases for one year.

3rd Logo (1990-1992)
Logo : Against the white/blue gradient sky with the reddish-white horizon and the midnight blue ground, the scarlet, amber and celadon green arrows with elongated tails and the black drop shadow fly down to the middle one by one and the tails shorten, then two parallelograms with "CASTLE" and "VIDEO" in the modified Microgramma font slide in from the left and from the right, respectively, forming the portcullis design, and the company name flashes.

FX/SFX : Simple animation.

Music/Sounds : Three whooshes then the arrows fly down and the slamming sound when the company name flashes.

Availability : Rare.

4th Logo (1988-1998?)
Logo : On a white cloudy background, three down arrows fly to the middle of the screen. A square appears on the arrows, forming a even more abstract portcullis design, and the background fades to white. Then, a chrome ribbon circles around the portcullis and a thin red line appears below the square. The words, "CASTLE HOME VIDEO" appears under it then flashes.

Variant :
 * Sometimes, "HOME VIDEO" would be replaced with "PICTURES".
 * An alternate version of the above variant exists, where the logo is placed a bit higher; a filmstrip instead of the chrome ribbon covering half of the portcullis design, and 2 lines being drawn with "CASTLE" in Garamond, and "Pictures" in Laser Std Chrome, appear below in chrome and flash, in which it cuts to black.
 * The logo may cut off or fade out.

FX/SFX : The arrows moving, the ribbon/filmstrip drawing and the text flashing.

Music/Sounds : A dramatic synth note, coupled with three whooshes, a phaser-like sound and a reversed cymbal crash.

Availability : Appeared on the company's titles from the era like Through The Fire. The variant with "Castle Pictures" is seen on extremely rare UK prints of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.

5th Logo (1995-2007)
Logo : On a space background with the Earth and the Sun in the distance, we pan over the lowercase letters "castle", as if we are standing on the letters, from left to right. Around the letter "t", the camera pans down and turns in the opposite direction, then zooms out to reveal the text is rotating around the Earth (a la the Universal logo). As this happens, a series of rainbow light trails (a la Star Trek) cover the space background, and after a couple seconds, the screen flashes white to reveal nothing but the new Castle logo on a space background, as pictured above.

Variant : A slightly longer version from 1995 exists.

FX/SFX : CGI.

Music/Sounds : A trance-like electronic theme that ends with a guitar chord.

Availability : Uncommon. Seen on releases on VHS & DVD from the company during this time.