Hijinks has created the new name, brand identity and hero film for Vue cinemas’ new premium offering.
Epic by Vue is a new big-screen experience that uses cutting-edge technologies – Dolby Atmos sound and Barco laser projection’s high dynamic range (HDR), which increases the range of colors and brightness displayed on the screen.
The rollout will see a minimum of of 11 Epic screens opened in the U.K., Italy and the Netherlands this year, with an additional minimum of 50 Epic screens opened across Vue’s European markets – which also include Germany, Denmark, Poland, Lithuania and Latvia – by the end of 2027.
The first will open at Vue’s newly launched site in the U.K. city of Nottingham at the end of July.
“One of the things we’re doing across the whole industry is differentiating the cinema experience to watching something at home,” says Shona Gold, Vue’s executive director of brand, marketing and PR.
“This is the biggest thing we’ve launched in the past few years, to give people that premium large format experience. Cinema is big, so it’s about watching films at that scale with the best sound and screen experience.”
The idea of epicness was “a brilliant place to start” Allenby explains, because it spoke to so many facets of the new offer. “It’s epic in scale, epic in sound, epic in color quality, and epic in what people take away from it.”
The logo is based on Vue’s existing “Isonorm” font, but the Hijinks team created a new “heavyweight” version to enhance its visual impact without straying too far from the network’s current graphic identity.
Hijinks collaborated with directors Laser Days, animation company Hornet, sound studio Factory and composer James Radford to ensure every aspect of the promo played to the immersive nature of the new screens.
For Allenby and his team, the film had to create a real wow moment that would capture cinema-goers’ imaginations. “It’s almost like the digital version of the curtain going up,” he says. “It should fire up your senses.”
Directors Jack Wedge and Will Freudenheim said the idea was to make light “the protagonist” of the film.
“We designed these massive, bold prismatic letters that feel majestic and awe-inspiring from the outside. From the inside, we built exhilarating high-speed journeys through luminous tunnels, using colour and light to evoke different cinematic genres.”
But Hijinks and Vue were also determined to extend the experience beyond the screen itself. From the online booking journey to the foyer, the signage to the entry ways, each element is designed to communicate the richness of Epic by Vue, above that of an average cinema trip.
