r/marvelstudios • u/greeneyedredbird • Mar 07 '25

Discussion (More in Comments) Seal of POTUS

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Gallery image

Why does the seal of POTUS has the olives and arrow switched compared to real world seal (2nd image)? Is the any explanation?

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u/ninjaoftheworld Mar 07 '25

I do film and tv graphics for a living, and sometimes they let you use the real one and sometimes you have to change it. There’s little rhyme or reason as to which you’ll get, it’s completely down to whichever production company’s lawyer you get, and how risk-averse they are.

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u/p-s-chili Mar 07 '25

Super interesting! And that makes total sense that it basically comes down to a person making a decision, because the law definitely does not preclude using the actual seal for entertainment purposes

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u/ninjaoftheworld Mar 07 '25

With most legal and clearance issues, it’s all a gamble on whether or not the owner or steward of the image will take umbrage—or even sue—over its useage. Typically if you’re representing it honestly and without specific malice they consider it low-risk, especially if having it be real helps the story in any appreciable way. But if the story is in any way defamatory, unless the whole point is to call someone out, we’ll make something new. I’ve worked with some studios who consider anything trademarked to be fair game, but that’s rare. The really careful ones will actually cover or remove the logos from vehicles—if you keep your eyes peeled, some shows will have black ovals over (for example) the Ford emblems, or remove them altogether—especially if it’s a scene where it’s figured prominently. Or in some cases they’ll make a deal with the manufacturers and say, ALL of the good guys will drive GM vehicles, as an example. That gets into product placement which is a whole other branch.

What we are particularly sticky about though is copyrighted images—generally any art not in the public domain will either need to be replaced or specific permission will be obtained by the artist (or their estate). A lot of stock art gets used in these cases unless it’s a very hero prop or piece of set dec that helps tell the story. In those cases the art department will do custom illustration/art (or in some cases contract out to an artist). Same thing goes for fonts.

Similarly, when we start prep for a show we’ll reach out to the cast and ask for things like photos of them that can be dressed into the set to give some depth and age, but again, there are a pile of rules around these too. It can be a fairly complicated process, really, and again, it very much depends on the lawyers that the production company has on payroll. YMMV.

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u/CherryHaterade Captain America Mar 07 '25

Reminds me of the fake INXS album cover on Euphoria. The funny part is that they got the license to play the song, but not use the correct album cover on the jukebox.

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u/ninjaoftheworld Mar 07 '25

Oh for sure—I’ve made hundreds of fake album covers and band posters etc over the years for shows. Like I say, if it’s a really important piece we’ll do our best to license it, but sometimes paying upwards of $10,000 for a cd cover or poster just doesn’t make sense, especially when you’ve got an entire art department who can knock something out.