Tag: hbo

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American TV Videos: Openings

And the Emmy for Main Title Design goes to..

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The 2009 Primetime Emmy for Main Title Design has just been awarded, last year Mad Men won, and in the running for it this year was:

> Vampire drama True Blood from HBO
> Showtime’s multiple personality comedy United States of Tara.
> AMC’s industry chat fest Storymakers
> HBO telemovie Taking Chance
> And Fox’s body language drama Lie To Me.

And the winner is..

For all the details on who made what, check out this.

Categories
European TV Videos: Promos

The Life & Times of Richard Branson.

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The amusingly dirty HBO animated sitcom The Life & Times of Tim makes its UK debut this month on Virgin 1. To promote the show, a very animated Richard Branson is featured in a series of promos with Tim, demonstrating a very creative way to market an imported programme while adding a local feel.

Categories
American TV Videos: TV

A portrait of True Blood’s return.

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If there’s one thing I love more than a good cast photo (like the cast of the Sopranos on a boat, or the cast of Scrubs.. also on a boat), its a good cast promo.

Full or overly symbolic references and imagery, its the kind of stuff you can only get away with when your playing outside the bounds of the shows usual narrative (or at least a dream sequence) and quite frankly no one does it better than HBO.

Take for example the series return of True Blood, set to the Bob Dylan track “Beyond Here Lies Nothing” is a beautiful moving portrait, open to intrepretion of what we might be able to expect from the latest instalment of the vampire thriller.

Another show that was rampant in there use of seasonal teasers was Six Feet Under, watch some examples after the jump.

Continue reading “A portrait of True Blood’s return.”
Categories
American TV Videos: Openings

From the makers of Six Feet Under: True Blood.

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True Blood is the latest creation from Alan Ball, the creator of Six Feet Under and American Beauty screenwriter. Just like Six Feet Under, the main titles for True Blood have been designed by Digital Kitchen, who also did the opener for Dexter.

The high concept premise behind True Blood revolves around the co-existence of vampires and humans in the southern US state of Louisiana. And from the pilot episode at least, it appears Ball intends to draw on vampires and their recent “outing” into mainstream society as an allegory for the struggle to achieve homosexual rights, racial equality and acceptance.

The gritty and compelling opening sequence, accompanied by the track Bad Things by Jace Everett, even goes so far to feature a sign saying “God Hates Fangs”, an obvious play on the famous protest signs of the Westboro Baptist Church.

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ABC1 Videos: Promos

Summer Heights headed for HBO and BBC Three.

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It’s just been reported that the Australian mockumentary Summer Heights High has been sold for international broadcast to BBC Three in the UK, and none other than HBO in the United States.

Chris Lilley won a Rose d’Or for his previous show, We Can Be Heroes, and will no doubt garner even greater attention with these new distribution deals. And while various other Australian productions have made their way onto American television, this will certainly be one of the most high profile.

Continue reading “Summer Heights headed for HBO and BBC Three.”
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Videos: Openings

The making of the Six Feet Under title sequence.

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The iconic opening sequence of HBO’s Six Feet Under raised the bar for television everywhere, with music by Thomas Newman and creative by Digital Kitchen and winner of the 2002 Emmy for main title design, nothing comes close to Six Feet Under.

The shows creator Alan Ball describes them as “elegant, cinematic, and so unlike tv”. The video above is a fifteen minute behind the scenes look at the creation of this beautiful opening. Watch the sequence in full from the final episode after the jump.

Continue reading “The making of the Six Feet Under title sequence.”
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SBS Videos: Openings

Opening Sequence Sunday: Big Love


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If you flick over to SBS right now, you’ll catch Big Love, a show that I’ve already gone on quite a bit about. The opening sequence however, deserves a mention. It’s classic HBO, a little surreal, a little very symbolic, accompnied by what Paul McCartney calls the best song ever written “God Only Knows” by The Beach Boys.

Update: Get some insight into the symbolism of the opener with this comment.

Categories
SBS Videos: Promos

The Big Love at SBS.

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The HBO drama Big Love starts on SBS tonight at 8:30pm, and while its up against Life on Mars and Grey’s Anatomy among other things, it will be interesting to see how it goes. Like the Chaser, it may bring a new audience who would otherwise not be watching television, as opposed to eating away at another networks viewers. As you’ve probably already heard in the promos above, or seen in the print ads that appeared in today’s papers the show stars Bill Paxton as a practicing polygamist living in Salt Lake City.

SBS is really growing on me of late, and I’ve already gotten over the fact they have in-program advertising. The Indonesian News was never going to be a draw card for me on SBS, but programming like Top Gear, the new News, and now potentially Big Love, the Special Broadcasting Service is becoming a bit of a More4, and hopefully a good environment to foster alternative programming that isn’t getting shown elsewhere.