Author: John Beohm

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BBC (Other) Videos: Promos

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.

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Web Asides

Sunrise vs Sunrise

It’s Sunrise vs Sunrise, as breakfast TV enters the bizarro world.

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ABC1 Videos: Promos

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.

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Ten Network Videos: Broadcast News

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.

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Channel 4 Videos: Promos

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.

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Foxtel Videos: Idents

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.

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Web Asides

Kath and Kim USA

The first promo for Kath & Kim USA.

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Ten Network Videos: Openings

Darkly dreaming of the dearly devoted Dexter.

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Did you know there was an Emmy for best main title design? One company that knows all about it is Digital Kitchen, who in 2002 won for their stunning work on the Six Feet Under opener, and scored big again last year with the titles for Dexter.

Dexter made its free to air debut in Australia this week, but both seasons were already over with on subscription television, with Foxtel’s new Showcase channel launching itself on the back of everyone’s favourite serial killer.

I watched both seasons of Dexter over summer, and became enthralled with the adventures of the dysfunctional Dexter Morgan, which brings me to my question..

Why didn’t Ten just pick this up in the first place? Free to air television isn’t exactly proving its relevance by letting Dexter (and others) make their debuts on pay TV.

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Foxtel Videos: Idents

The history of Australian television, by Foxtel.

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Since my constant shilling for all things Foxtel HD apparently knows no bounds, I figure the least I could do is post the advert for the new high definition service too.

The commercial is a trip through Australian television history, from the first transmission in 1956, to the introduction of colour in 1975, right up to the launch of Foxtel HD, which I’m afraid probably won’t go down in history with the kind of reverence that they were probably hoping for, but it is an ad after all.

The song featured in the video is ‘Lost in Time’ by Melbourne artist Whitley.

– Big thanks to Christian for the video.

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Foxtel Videos: Idents

The highly defined National Geographic.

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As the Foxtel HD roadshow continues, we’ve already seen BBC HD, and the sports channels, now its onto National Geographic HD who have launched a simple yet dramatic series of idents to celebrate their jump into the world of high definition.