Thank you for the precision, DBL and Hatton Cross! Yeah, France 3 with their marmots in winter/summer and their 24-rectangles idents in regular year time (
ex am pl es), is something I enjoy watching too.
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I think that the Balloon idents, which, it seems, are often quoted as a reference here (and it's fair!), are popular because they unite two key elements:
• Something that reminds that the channel is national (the landscapes of the United Kingdom)
• Something that's a core element of the identity of the channel (the famous world globe)
But there's more. It was not only about being national and being BBC1. It was about taking these two key elements and turning them into something very original, with an unique point of view on them, to transcend them.
Something reminding of the nation? It could have been the flag, it could have been monuments, but no, it's landscapes! Such a beautiful invitation for a journey across the kingdom, between two programmes!
The globe? It could just have stood there, computer-generated. But no, it was turned into a balloon! The journey across the kingdom becomes poetic, peaceful. And landscapes are always so beautiful from above!
Add some notes of atmosphere-fitting music, quality production, and you get a jewel.
This could be an inspiration for future presentations for BBC1. Take some good intemporal stuff, and reinvent it, make it innovative.
I don't find any of that in the idents of 2017. The work done by Martin Parr is, in my opinion, very interesting, but I don't think it fits for idents! Idents need to leave a mark in the mind of the viewer. Even Étienne Robial, with his work for French pay-tv Canal+ in 1995(*), understood that. The Martin Parr idents don't leave a mark in the mind of the viewer; or don't leave a memorable one. In comparison, they are just dull!
All of what I have typed above about the BBC One Balloon idents makes me completely agree with NextBigThing's idea. The concept reminds me a bit of the
Eurovision Song Contest's postcards in 2014, which were very beautiful imho; and anyway, such an idea, if done cleanly and with originality, would probably be a great delight to see on air on BBC One!
At its core the concept of taking snapshots of modern Britain is quite a good one - it has just never been fully thought through. Instead of what we have, the BBC could have commissioned a whole range of different (i.e. diverse) photographers, artists, sculptors etc - the idents themselves would then be about these people creating their compositions with a final form-up showing their results, probably with the actual subject in the background as a kind of comparison & contextualisation. You could have several different versions of the same ident, in each case the same subject matter but with the different artist's view of it (i.e. 10 subject matters x 5 different artists = 50 different ident combinations). The same sonic logo would be used across all of them, but each artist would have their version of it to characterise their unique signature style. This would demonstrate how everyone views things in different ways, and yet how BBC One can bring everyone together in 'oneness'.
(*) For the record, Canal+'s branding in 1995 only consisted in music and coloured squares; and yet the result was an immediately recognizeable branding, with a lot of personality. Some people hated it, but I am sure I can say that most Canal+ viewers felt it fitted the channel — and that was quite a challenge, given how the previous branding (with the rainbow-coloured ring) was popular!
Here's a demo of that 1995 branding by Étienne Robial (visuals) and Philippe Eidel (music); be careful, there are flashing images.
Last edited by Quatorzine Neko on 11 January 2017 8:46pm