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New Zealand TV Videos: Idents

The Elementary Particles of New Zealand’s TV2.

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I’ve previously posted about New Zealand’s TV2 here, but since I’ve got my hands on some more of their stuff I thought it was probably time for one of those big posts were I just dump it all together. All the videos are accompanied by the song Aire of Good Feeling by NZ band The Quincy Conserve.

Above are three idents from TV2, with the first video being a 60 second montage of the “particles” look. And below is a 2008 promo for the new slate of programming.

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– Thanks again to the whole TVNZ team for supplying the videos.

Categories
Videos: TV

The beautiful escape of carbon dioxide.

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Captured at 10,000 frames per second, and shot in Australia, this ad for Schweppes by agency George Patterson Y&R is simply stunning. Accompanied by the track “To Build A Home” by The Cinematic Orchestra the 90 second spot creates the kind of inspiring, engaging, memorable and beautiful imagery that drove me to start this site.

Long time readers of this blog may have figured out by now that I have a strong belief that the commercial aspects of idents detract greatly from the creation of a successful spot. Which is why my most favorable comments are generally left to public broadcasters, or more progressive commercial stations who are willing to take the risk to create something beautiful and artistic.

From that you can probably gather that there are even fewer advertisements (purely commercial devices) that I feel strive for or attain the kind of artistic levels that some idents do. The “bouncing balls” of Sony Bravia for example is exceptionally well crafted, and traverses the gap between between ad and art, as does this amazing spot from Schweppes.

Categories
Seven Network Videos: Promos

The monolithic Gladiators.

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Gladiators is making its return to Australian television after a decade off-air, and while I do have fond memories of the show as an 11 year old in primary school, I’m probably less excited about it this time around.

I am however pretty impressed with the epic-of-a-promo thats been on-air recently, there are two versions of the spot, the first is for metro markets and ends with the monolithic Seven logo, and the other ends with the big G for regional networks.

The promo was filmed around Kiama, New South Wales, and was created by Motion Foundry, Tim Barrett, and Graham Donald.

Categories
European TV Videos: Broadcast News Videos: Openings

Norway’s News Network: TV2 Nyhetskanalen.

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TV2 Nyhetskanalen is Norway’s first round the clock news network, its operated by commercial broadcaster TV2 and has been on the air just over one year.

The above is a selection of the stations on-air look, but compared to the outstanding branding of Norway’s national broadcaster NRK, aren’t really that great.

And while I know Australia does have its own news network in Sky News, surely its time a free-to-air alternative launched, and if the ABC doesn’t get the funding to launch one, perhaps its time Seven launched a news channel, the name itself is crying out for some word play.. Seven 24?

Even New Zealand is about to get a free to air news channel at the end of the month.

– Thanks for the videos Hans!

Categories
Videos: TV

For Your Consideration: The Oscars opener.

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While there isn’t an Oscar category for title design yet (the proposal was rejected in 1999) it shouldn’t stop us from looking at the Academy’s own opening credits.

Personally I think TCM’s creative and mesmerising take on the movie montage would have served as a much more eloquent introduction to the 80th Academy Awards.

Categories
New Zealand TV Videos: Idents

New Zealand loves the feeling, on TV2.

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My first New Zealand related post! These two idents come from TV2, which is part of the state-owned TVNZ corporation. And while it is a public broadcaster, TVNZ accepts advertising, which along with other commercial activities makes up 90% of the networks revenue.

A look at the channels line up draws immediate parallels to the Seven Network in Australia, except for Scrubs actually being in prime time (which makes it even more embarrassing that JD doesn’t know where New Zealand is), and the anomaly that resulted in NZ somehow broadcasting episodes of Men In Trees before the US.

– Thanks to the whole TVNZ team for supplying the videos.

Categories
Videos: TV

It’s not an ident, but it is my birthday. Part 3.

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I’m not sure this tradition quite has enough traction for me to continue with it, but when I turned 21, and then again when I turned 22 I posted the latest Bravia ads.

Well I’m 23 today, so here it is, the two latest ads, Pyramid and Play Doh.

All these advertisements from Sony have always reminded me of the kind of installation art Christo and Jeanne-Claude are famous for, and if they weren’t ads they would probably make spectacular idents.

Categories
Sky (UK) Videos: Idents

Sky’s One Two Three…

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Considering the last seven posts on this blog are all ABC related, its probably time for something different. Thankfully a new look Sky Three went on air last week in the UK.

Sky Three is a free to air digital network available throughout the UK, and is meant to be an accompaniment to the subscription only Sky One and Sky Two channels.

While it seems an odd proposition for a subscription service to launch a free to air channel, presumably its programming and promotion is meant to encourage take up the pay only services, I guess it would be like Australia’s Fox8 launching a free to air Fox9 in a bid to increase subscription television take up?

Check out Sky Three’s old look, and more of the new look here.

– Thanks for the videos Craig.

Categories
ABC2 Videos: Promos

The red, the green, and the orange of ABC2.

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While I was a fan of some of the old ABC2 idents, and am still getting used to the new ones, something about the network that always left me unimpressed was the murky-green-water theme that dominated their promos and other on-air branding. The new ABC2 however has got a fresh coat of paint, and with its bold use of red, green and orange gives a distinctive look, that for me at least gives the network a feeling of independence, and some even footing with ABC1.

The new look was developed by Tactic, check out what they did to ABC1 here.

UPDATE: It turns out the ABC has never had a unifying channel brand like they’ve just adopted, and whats on-air right now isn’t the gold standard that was intended (the third video above for example), so while whats on-air catches up with what was intended, check out the screenshots below for an idea of what we should expect soon.

Continue reading “The red, the green, and the orange of ABC2.”
Categories
ABC1 Videos: Promos

The red, the white and the blue of ABC1.

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While the new idents make up just part of the ABC1 look, another major factor is the on-air branding of promos and other broadcast materials. The task of developing a new look was left up to Tactic who came up with “a ‘toolkit’ of over 200 channel branding elements including colour palette selection, font selection, on-air promo packaging, supers and menus… The new branding provides the foundations for the ABC to create and produce their own promos and on-air elements.”

Tactic didn’t come up with the new logos, they were supplied by the ABC, but they did do the rest, and while the red, white and blue initially confused me a bit, its beginning to sink in. It’s certainly distinctive and very clean, qualities I tend to find appealing.

Check out the new on-air branding from Tactic for ABC2 here.

UPDATE: It turns out the ABC has never had a unifying channel brand like they’ve just adopted, and as mentioned in comments earlier whats on-air right now isn’t the gold standard that was intended, so while whats on-air catches up with what was intended, check out the screenshots below for an idea of what we should expect soon.

Continue reading “The red, the white and the blue of ABC1.”