Television 101: An introduction to idents.

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David Mitchell, from That Mitchell and Webb Look recently narrated a Channel 4 series called TV is Dead? all about the “challenges the television industry is currently facing as a result of the digital revolution”.

One part of the series looked at the often over looked importance of television idents, something Australian television loves to dismiss, and something that this site is all about promoting. The clip should serve as an interesting introduction to the world of idents, and also offers a great peek into the UK television industry.

– Enormous thanks to Andy for the video.

And the nominees for Main Title Design are..

UPDATE: And the Emmy goes to Mad Men. The full list of winners is available here.

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The nominees for the 2008 Primetime Emmy Award for Main Title Design have been announced, last year Dexter won, and in the running for it this year:

> Advertising drama Mad Men from AMC
> HBO telemovie Bernard and Doris
> Geek action hero Chuck on NBC
> CIA miniseries The Company
> And cancelled Fox series New Amsterdam

For all the details on who made what, check out this. And the winner will be announced at the Creative Arts ceremony on September 13th.

20 IMG Archtypes

mandrill.jpg

A terra cotta bunny, a playboy centerfold and a Mandril. What do these things have in common you ask? If your answer was the cast list to the greatest YouTube video of all time you’d be wrong (that would be cool though). The correct answer is that these are all images used and re-used in the testing process of creating digital imagery. The folks over the unfortunately named Art Fag City have put together a post of 20 CG Image Archetypes for your browsing pleasure. Lots of good history and links here. Take a look.

[LINK] (http://www.artfagcity.com/2008/07/28/img-mgmt-20-archetypes/) to the original post (marginally NSFW because it has a naked teapot in it)

Thanks to Azathoth for the link

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Goodbye Starbucks, Hello TiVo.

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On the same day that Starbucks announced they were bailing out Australia, another iconic American brand is launching itself here, hopefully with better results.

TiVo, the personal video recorder that became a verb, went on sale around the country today. Backed by the Seven Network, and with no monthy fees, its being positioned as the anti-Foxtel, although slightly steep at $699, the theory is thats all you’ll ever pay.

Check out the iPod inspired commercial for the new device above.

The aerial idents of Al Jazeera English.

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An incredibly simple use of aerial footage, combined with the familiar beats of music that screams “you’re watching a news channel” create a surprisingly effective collection of idents for Al Jazeera English.

They express the kind of simple dignity that an international news channel broadcasting to over 100 million people should command, as opposed to say this.

– Big thanks to Sean for the videos.

Everybody was Kung Fu fighting, on the BBC.

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Here’s a challenge for you: condense a 400-year-old, 100 chapter Chinese novel into a two minute animated trailer for the upcoming Beijing Olympics.

Actually, don’t worry, the BBC have already done it…

That’s right, they’ve abandoned the traditional “gold-infused slow-motion footage of athletes” Olympics imagery in favour of something a bit more creative.

Animated by Gorillaz creator Jamie Hewlett with music by Damon Albarn, this video of Monkey and his friends made its debut last night in the UK at 7:27pm with a simulcast across BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Three, BBC Four and BBC News, and will form the centrepiece of the BBC’s Olympic coverage branding.

The ABC takes “TV out of the box”.

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The ABC has been teasing its viewers lately with the tagline “TV out of the box”. Well, this evening the ABC announced that its BBC iPlayer-esque service initally dubbed ABC Playback is now open to the public, and has been rebranded as ABC iView.

The BBC have been very succesful in establishing iPlayer as a brand despite its ordinary name, but really, iView was the best they could come up with?

Anyway, derivative name aside, the just launched ABC iView service is fairly similar to the beta version of the ABC Playback service that I reviewed earlier this year. And while the video quality is fine, and the content has increased to include news among other things, the interface still bugs me badly, and the whole thing doesn’t come close to the user experience of the newly launched BBC iPlayer 2.0.

Ten News changes its look, now even noisier.

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Channel Ten have rejigged their news branding, with before and after videos above, I’m sure you’ll be as dissapointed as me with the new look. And in case you can’t tell which is the new look, its the one with all the not so subtle Sony Vaio laptops and abrupt music transitions when they start talking about sport.

And you wonder why people make so much fun of broadcast news these days.

The Stanley Kubrick season on More4.

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Last week Channel 4’s digital sibling More4 launched the Stanley Kubrick season, a ten day film festival of some of the celebrated directors work. This stunning promo was shot in one long take, and is a look behind the scences of Kubrick’s 1980 film The Shining, all from the perspective of the director himself.

The spot produced by Channel 4 Creative, was meticulously researched and was even shot using the directors favourite lens. Truly fitting for such a influential filmmaker.

British television seems to love the idea of programming “seasons”. More4 won an award for this promo used for their State of Russia season a few years back, and earlier this year BBC Four took its viewers on a trip into the Medieval mind.

Discovery discovers High Definition.

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Discovery HD rounds out the new HD channels from the recently launched Foxtel HD, it joins National Geographic HD, BBC HD, and Fox Sports and ESPN HD.

The network is yet to adopt the new look Discovery branding, which is a shame because although this is an HD channel it looks like it just stepped out the nineties.