HBO Feature Presentation: Difference between revisions

'''Availability:''' Extinct. Again you should check old HBO recordings to find it. This appears in very high quality on ''The World of Robert Abel'', an installment in Pioneer's 1985 LaserDisc series ''Visual Pioneers''.

 

 

'''Music/Sounds:''' A bouncy techno version of the fanfare that fits well with this bumper.

 

 

'''Music/Sounds:''' A rather moody, funky, and smooth version of the fanfare. Again, it fits well with this bumper.

'''FX/SFX:''' Awesome animation!

'''Nicknames:''' "HBO in Space", "HBO City", "The Big Bang", "Classic HBO", "80s HBO"

'''Opening:''' As we start with a man tuning the cable on a TV set for a channel (to HBO, of course!) in his apartment as he settles down on the couch with his wife with several food items (i.e. a tub of popcorn, a pizza cut into slices etc.) in front of them. The camera pans backwards and outside the window to show a somewhat busy city intersection with figurines of vehicles and people standing on the sidewalk at twilight. The music starts, and the camera "flies" forward down the street, through several intersections. At one point you can even see a movie theater with "HBO THEATRE" on the marquee. We fly over some buildings before going into the suburbs, with lots of trees. We fly over several houses and a clock tower. Then the camera pans up into the sky, which briefly takes sunset hues before becoming {{Font color|blue|blue}} and black with a starfield. We go up into space, eventually panning up to reveal the source of the light; a star (positioned near the top center of the screen) that gets brighter and brighter, and eventually explodes in a {{Font color|orangered|scarlet}} and {{Font color|blue|blue}} gemstone-shaped flash, leaving behind a shiny chrome model monolith. The monolith moves down and across the screen and rotates clockwise, revealing that it is the HBO logo, then turns around one more time as the camera then zooms in on the side of the "{{Font color|silver|'''O'''}}". The side of the "{{Font color|silver|'''O'''}}" disappears in a flash of light, revealing a stream of {{Font color|red|red}}, {{Font color|#FFD900|yellow}} and {{Font color|blue|blue}} rays streaking counterclockwise around a {{Font color|silver|silver}} axis, and "{{Font color|violet|'''HBO FEATURE PRESENTATION'''}}", in a heavy, {{Font color|violet|lavender}} 3D "gaspipe" font and with each word stacked on top of the other (as well as a line under "{{Font color|violet|'''<u>PRESENTATION</u>'''}}"), appears against an array of {{Font color|purple|purple}} lines. Some more rays sweep across the words and shine, then the background fades to black with more flashes from the surrounding rays.

*This logo was parodied in the music video for "DVNO" by the electro house group Justice, with even more high-tech effects.

'''FX/SFX:''' The city cars, wind, and the light sounds in the end. It's worth nothing that not a single computer-generated image was used to make this bumper. The city is an intricately detailed model with lightbulbs placed under the houses, from which a motorized camera was used to film it. There were also crew members who puffed smoke into the city to add the atmosphere. The starburst before the HBO logo appears is the "stargate" animation, made with two pieces of art and is moved around and shot frame-by-frame (Scanimation-eqsue animation). The HBO logo itself is a model made of brass and is chrome-plated and combined with the starry sky background. The part with the colored rays was actually a series of fiber optics with motors and gears and pulleys used to change the colors and move them around and put inside the chrome "O". All of this work, done by Liberty Studios in New York City, should show you how wildly impressive this opener is.

'''Music/Sounds:''' The sounds of the TV in the opening scene, then some honking horns and city noises (or, in the short version, a whoosh, and the fog variant contains wind sounds) A piano/string chord is heard, which leads into a dramatic orchestral theme that gets progressively more tense. When the star explodes, phasing sounds are heard, culminating in a very loud, upbeat, almost disco-style horn-driven overture, ending with synth sweeps (representing the rays "inside" the "O"). Composed by Ferdinand J. Smith with a 65-man orchestra. Awesome music!

'''FX/SFX:''' The pan-down from the CGI squares, the lasers lighting the dots, the zoom out to the HBO Movie logo. This is very professional late '80s animation, done by [[Pacific Data Images]], in addition to those gorgeous neon rainbow colors.

'''Music/Sounds:''' A loud electric guitar tune, which culminates into a brief, funky new wave theme that at the very end ends with another electric guitar strum and a twinkling fade-out. This half sounds sort of like Speak & Spell-era Depeche Mode.

'''FX/SFX:''' The filmstrip, the countdown, the lighting. Pretty ambitious computer animation from the early 90s.

'''FX/SFX:''' Breathtaking CGI, directed and designed by Mark Johnston at Pittard Sullivan and animated by Computer Cafe. A nice computer generated opener inspired by HBO's original stop-motion effort.

'''Nicknames:''' "HBO 2011", "HBO Aurora", "Boring HBO"

'''Nicknames:''' "HBO 2014", "HBO Gallery", "Boring HBO II", "iPhone HBO"

'''FX/SFX:''' There is so much detail that it is near impossible to describe everything going on in the logo. A truly breathtaking blend of live-action and CGI and an amazing homage to the 8th and 14th openings and was made by Imaginary Forces.