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Logorama

2009 French film From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Logorama
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Logorama is a 2009 French adult animated crime disaster black comedy short film produced by the French graphic design and animation studio H5 as their first and only cinematic project made so far. Co-written and directed by François Alaux, Hervé de Crécy and Ludovic Houplain,[1] the film is set in a stylized version of Los Angeles and portrays various events as being told entirely through the extensive use of more than 2,000 contemporary and historical company logos and mascots.[2] The short's voice cast consists of Bob Stephenson, David Fincher, Aja Evans, Sherman Augustus, Joel Michaely, Matt Winston, Gregory J. Pruss, Josh Eichenbaum, Jaime Ray Newman, and Andrew Kevin Walker.

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Upon its release on 20 May 2009 in Cannes, Logorama has received numerous awards, including winning both the Kodak Discovery Award for Best Short Film (the Kodak Prix) at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival[3] and the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film at the 82nd Academy Awards the following year.[4]

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Plot

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In Los Angeles, California, the buildings and residents are adorned with commercial branding: Birds shaped like Bentley and Aston Martin logos soar through the sky, while MSN's butterflies flutter around; pedestrians resemble the AIM icon; and highway signs hanging overhead feature Atlantic Records logos, among others. The original Pringles mascot drives through Malibu, eventually pulling into a Pizza Hut parking lot and approaches a break-time Esso waitress smoking an "Air France" cigarette. Meanwhile, two police officers, embodied as Michelin Men named Mitch and Mike, debate the ethics of keeping animals in zoos from inside their police cruiser. Their discussion ends when Mike is sent to pick up lunch from KFC for both of them. As he departs with a Dunkin' Donuts-shaped soft drink and a bucket of fried chicken wings in the form of the Honda Motorcycles logo, a criminal called Ronald McDonald is smuggling weapons in a red delivery van at a nearby gas station selling diesel. Mitch listens to a call over the radio, revealing that the criminal is on the loose. Spotting Ronald from afar in shock, Mike rushes out the door leaking to the KFC, accidentally hitting the face of Fido Dido. The police pursue Ronald; during this chase, other innocent bystanders and some motorists are endangered or harmed.

Across town, BiC Boy students, along with Big Boy and Haribo Boy, are on a guided tour at the Los Angeles Zoo led by a campy Mr. Clean; tired of the tour, Big Boy and Haribo Boy disembark from the tour train and run off to the lion exhibit. Once there, they start to begin to harass the MGM lion: Haribo moons him and Big Boy throws an empty Coca-Cola bottle at him while calling him names, prompting the zoo's owner, the Jolly Green Giant, to reprimand them.

Meanwhile, the chase escalates rapidly, endangering more motorists on the highway, more innocent bystanders and even more motorists in town as Ronald and the police speed along an off-ramp leading into the city, including Red and Yellow who are collided into and fatally struck while they use the crosswalk. The students on the tour are soon back on their school bus, approaching the Pizza Hut where Esso Girl is serving coffee to the Original Pringles mascot and the Pringles Hot & Spicy mascot, with help from the Pillsbury Doughboy. The police chase is broadcast live. Ronald brakes and swerves to avoid the school bus, but instead crashes his van into a car and a semi-truck, causing the van to slide on to the sidewalk and on the grass where it stops in front of the Pizza Hut, hitting its sign and dome. Several guns and biological weapons spill from the back of the van and onto the sidewalk and curb, tempting Big Boy and Haribo Boy to sneak off from the teacher to steal and sell them on the black market. Ronald exits his truck, kicks Haribo Boy unconscious, and then uses a Heckler & Koch MP5 to take Big Boy hostage. He runs into the Pizza Hut with Big Boy, but Big Boy bites his arm free and hides behind the counter with Esso Girl, as Ronald attempts to shoot him. Police are authorized to fire, but Ronald retaliates, shooting at them after Mitch disobeys orders to hold fire—accidentally hitting Mr. Peanut in the head with a sniper bullet, causing his peanut shell to shatter and the nut inside to fall on the floor.

As gunfire erupts, a distant rumble shakes Los Angeles, causing a Michelin Man to miss Ronald’s head—his intended sniper target—resulting in the bullet ricocheting and hitting a helicopter’s tail rotor, which causes it to lose altitude and crash into a Pizza Hut. Fortunately, no one is hurt except the helicopter pilot Michelin Man, who loses consciousness, leading to a subsequent earthquake. The animals escape, with an elephant running into the Jolly Green Giant and carrying him off after he tries to stop them. Big Boy and Esso Girl escape the collapsing Pizza Hut, while the Original Pringles mascot and the Hot & Spicy mascot are crushed inside after hiding under a booth. The two eventually hijack Mitch and Mike's police cruiser to flee as the earthquake creates a fissure in the street resembling Microsoft's Xbox logo. Ronald, after shooting Mitch in the head, rides away through the city on a stolen Grease 2 motorcycle, leaving a skid mark shaped like the Pirelli logo. He crashes into a fallen Weight Watchers sign, slides into a crevasse resembling the Zenith Electronics logo after dodging signs for Enron, Freddie Mac, and Kmart, using a Nabisco sign as a ramp. When he gets up, he’s run over by Esso Girl and Big Boy, who barely escape the city and head to the hills via Route 66, riding along a curved highway shaped like the Vaio logo. The earthquake spreads through the desert and into Marlboro Country, where oil wells are located. Approaching the Hollywood Chewing Gum Sign, it disintegrates and slides down the hill onto the highway. While avoiding one of the fallen letters, the duo veers off the highway, crashes through a guardrail, and down a hill, ending in a collision with an apple tree shaped like the American Century Investments logo, forcing a bushel of apples to come out. Petroleum erupts, flooding Los Angeles and sweeping everything away, prompting some individuals to climb to the highest roofs and top floors of buildings, which remain afloat in Malibu.

The hill supporting the cruiser, with Esso Girl and Big Boy inside, splits open, revealing a giant North Face logo, while the land around disintegrates. The remaining land separates and falls into the sea, forming a tiny island where the duo is stranded. Esso Girl picks up from the ground and bites one of the colored apples while lying on the newly formed island, which is part of Southern California and the Baja California peninsula, now separated from the mainland and shaped like the Nike swoosh logo. It’s also shown that the universe is made up of countless logos. Additionally, it’s revealed that Ronald survived being run over, with only hair loss, a black eye, cross-eyedness, and some missing teeth.

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Voice cast

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Themes

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Logorama explores the extent that logos are embedded in Earth's daily existence. H5 members explained: "Logorama presents us with an over-marketed world built only from logos and real trademarks that are destroyed by a series of natural disasters (including an earthquake and a tidal wave of oil). Logotypes are used to describe an alarming universe (similar to the one that we are living in) with all the graphic signs that accompany us everyday [sic] in our lives. This over-organized universe is violently transformed by the cataclysm becoming fantastic and absurd. It shows the victory of the creative against the rational, where nature and human fantasy triumph".[5]

Brands, mascots and logos

The entirety of Logorama features numerous brand images, mascots and logos as the characters, props, locations, vehicles and other content. Notable uses include McDonald's mascot Ronald McDonald being depicted as a criminal reminiscent of the Joker, Michelin Men being depicted as the police, and the Esso Oil Drop Girl being depicted as a waitress in a diner. However, some of the logos are also derived from fictional brands, such as Slurm from Futurama, the Ghostbusters logo, and the Buy-N-Large (BnL) logo from WALL-E.

Logos for well-known media such as The Wall, South Park, Sesame Street, COPS, Batman, James Bond, Grease 2, Street Fighter II, The Empire Strikes Back, and Left 4 Dead are included, along with several logos representing musical artists like Gorillaz, Green Day, The Clash, Daft Punk, Public Enemy, Sex Pistols, AC/DC, Run–D.M.C., Fatboy Slim, and Iron Maiden.

Accolades

Logorama has received the following awards and nominations:

  • Kodak Discovery Award for Best Short Film (the Kodak Prix) – Critics' Week, 62nd Cannes Film Festival (2009) – Won
  • Audience Award – Festival International de Curtas Metragans (2009) – Won
  • Audience Award – Lille International Short Film Festival (2009) – Won
  • Jury's Special Prize, Audience Prize, Fuji Prize for Best Directors – Cinanima International Animated Film Festival (2009) – Won
  • Best Short Film – Stockholm International Film Festival (2009) – Won
  • Best Direction, Audience Award – Vendôme Film Festival (2009) – Won
  • Gold Medal for Animation – Zinebi, Bilbao International Film Festival (2009) – Won
  • Oscar for Best Animated Short – 82nd Academy Awards (2010) – Won
  • Best Short Film – Césars 2011 – Won
  • Best Animated Film – Césars 2011 – Nominated
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In other media

The Simpsons episode "A Tree Grows in Springfield" (season 24, episode 6) ends with a vignette inspired by Logorama, called Logomania.[6]

A catalog inspired by the short, titled Logobook and written by the film's co-director Ludovic Houplain, was published by Taschen in 2013.[7]

See also

References

External links

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