Centron Corporation

Background
Centron Corporation was a leading industrial and educational film production company, specializing in classroom and corporate 16mm films and VHS videocassettes. Although a slightly smaller company than its contemporaries (Encyclopædia Britannica Films, Coronet Films and Learning Corporation of America), it was nonetheless very successful from the late 1940s through the early 1990s, gaining added fame with the Academy Award-nominated Leo Beuerman in 1969.

1st Logo (1971?-1976?)


Logo: On a black background, a red circle with a "C" in a futuristic font appears, then a blue triangle with "E" in the same font, and then a yellow square with "F" once again in the same font. Then the text fades in, consisting of "p r e s e n t e d b y" on the top and "CENTRON EDUCATIONAL FILMS" on the bottom.

Variant: A black & white version exists. Sometimes, it's spliced a bit on Roosevelt and U.S. History: 1882-1929.

FX/SFX: The letters fading in in sync with the shapes; the text fading in.

Music/Sounds: A 3-note synthesizer; each note is played to the notes on a music scale (C,D,E,F,G,A,B,C). They may be off-sync due to film deterioration.

Availability: Ultra rare. It was seen on the educational film, Analyzing Advertising, as well as others from the time period. Of course, films like these almost never air on TV after screening, and will only likely exist on 16mm prints, which are heavily deteriorated, and can be seen on Internet Archive, but other releases of the period is listed in WorldCat.

2nd Logo (1981)


Logo: On a black background, seven white outlined rounded vertical rectangles appear in a row. They then turn yellow and copies of the rectangles appear one by one, appearing at a different angle, starting at orange, then red, pink, white, purple, two blue, and finally two green, stopping at the yellow rectangles. Each row then disappears in the same order they appeared in. The words "a CENTRON FILMS" in white zoom out to above the rectangles, and "presentation" zooms out to below them. "a" and "presentation" fade to blue. The yellow outlines fade to white and within the outlines the rectangles become filled. From left to right, forest green, navy blue, red, denim, jonquil, sky blue, and hot magenta.

Variant: A black & white version exists.

FX/SFX: The rotating rows of rectangle; the text. Again, simple animation, yet much better than before.

Music/Sounds: A remix of the last logo's jingle, this time with four notes: G,C and E are played note by note, then F is played after a brief pause.

Availability: Ultra rare. So far, this only appears on Ears: Have You Heard The Latest? and again, other films from the time period.