Reiner's shine made many of us fall in love with movies

As the man behind classics such as 'When Harry Met Sally' and 'The Princess Bride', he created astonishingly warm and humane films that envelop you like a hug

- Adam White

Nothing is typically romantic about a corporate logo, but when I think of Rob Reiner, I think of Castle Rock.

Reiner, whose death at the age of 78 is being investigated as a homicide, co-created the production company in 1987, and I find that little more encapsulates the grand, wistful magic of moviemaking than the animation that opens the films it made, or closes out the TV it produced.

In it, the lamp from a lighthouse twirls around the night sky, illuminating the sea and the land, while a glorious orange sun rises behind it. For its later incarnations, a musical flutter - stardust, it sounds like - serenades its eventual fade to black.

The Castle Rock Entertainment logo introduces films including the seminal romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally..., which Reiner directed, as well as The Shawshank Redemption, Before Sunrise, Miss Congeniality and Christopher Guest’s canine mockumentary Best in Show. It shows up at the end of every episode of Seinfeld.

These animated logos - or “bumpers”, as they’re officially known - are designed to say lots with little. If the bouncing table lamp of Pixar promised slapstick ingenuity, or the majestic wallop of 20th Century-Fox’s floodlights and trumpets teased pure grandeur, the appearance of Castle Rock meant you were in store for a hug.