UCI Cinemas - early 1990s animated policy

[CMDRKillsalot]

Damn!

I remember this! My local UCI used this intro, right up until it was converted into an Odeon.

Odeon sucks.

[sadim91]

Why was there a Columbia Pictures logo at the end/

[SgtErnestGBilko]

@sadim91

Probably taken from a trailer-reel tape

[lyris1]

Holy shit! I didn't know what this was until the guys fighting on the bridge! I remember this!

[trailersic]

@raccoonfan There's only two ways for modern film projectors to run, matted or anamorphic lens, they wouldn't make a policy in anamorphic because that would require stretching the screen out for every performance then back in again if it was flat.

[bennjr]

Seems like the kind of thing you would have seen in the '90's before a film in, say, UCI Tallaght?!?!

[martybhoy72]

Been hunting for this clip for months. Thanks for posting.

[tripleseis81]

This brings back memories of going to the UCI in Whiteleys in the 90s!

[thebryman]

@tripleseis81 exactly the same for me. I used to love that cinema as a kid!

[PolyBrow]

Sorry for the spamming, YouTube has gotten buggy as of late.

[PolyBrow]

@raccoonfan: I believe it was matted. From 0:45 - 0:49 you can see the peg bars holding the animation cels, which were never meant to be seen by cinemagoers. Also there is no apparent cropping of the sides and a lot of dead space in the compositions (the action is mostly in the centre).

[cimarronpob]

@raccoonfan I think it is cropped at the sides. The clip was taken from an old VHS tape that was shown in some UCI cinemas.

[trailersic]

@cimarronpob

This looks almost def open-matte to me (slightly cropped on the right) you can see by the frog section that it's supposed to be cropped from this to 1.85:1 as in this version you can see the animation frame/cell notes

[KRPTV]

I remember as a little child being really scared of that UCI logo at the end, so much so that I stopped going to UCI and went to Showcase instead! I don't know why I was scared of it, looking at it now it's beautiful. It probably had something to do with that giant green 'i' dot looking like it was going to burst through the screen and knock me out!

[KRPTV]

I have just posted a comment on another clip saying that the UCI ident that I remember doesn't appear to be on youtube, this was the one I was referring to! Brings back many memories this does!

[PIFMan092]

Yup, it is. National Amusements also used the same intro for 15 years before creating new (but kinda crappy) daysets.

[PIFMan092]

I think this probably would've become disused by 1995, with UCI just using the The Great Escape ident. I wouldn't be surprised if they did reuse it though. One of my local cinemas has shown the same weird CGI Seasons Greetings policy trailer every Christmas since 1992.

[PIFMan092]

Now about the ad itself. From 1989, this was the first intro for UCI. Groundbreaking use of CGI (Even if it doesn't stand up well today), and the presentation of the trailer really helped bring the multiplex feel to cinemas in Britain. Before then, it was either simplistic low budget animation, or still cards. One thing that's kind of annoying is that they forgot to hide the bottom part of the animation cells, leaving the numbers exposed (e.g the scene with the frog and the shark.)

[PIFMan092]

Your channel is absolutely amazing! Where did you manage to get all these daysets? Are they from a DVD? I've been looking for some of them for AGES! :D Are you planning on uploading some cinema ads? Keep up the good work!