New Countdown

Chances are the designer used a generator or plugin for whatever application the post work was done in. Final Cut, After Effects, et al generally have these facilities built in (I know Final Cut does), and in many instances the parameters can be customized, including the font (again, Final Cut supports this.)

In the rare event it was done by hand, the frame count was probably generated separately (by hand) and made into an fx element or clip and stashed in a clip bin. The designer could then have created each "second" and have the frame count clip play on each.

I know the BBC have used the Liquid Silver NLE system (by Pinnacle) so it may have been cut on there, or posted on something more suited. But chances are it was generated automatically.

I know; I was just trying to make the point that Sky have a fixed cutoff at the top of the hour, which they can't miss, and if they do, they'll get faded off mid-sentence. News 24, on the other hand, have the relative luxury of a 60 second buffere zone.

I listened to the 01.00 countdown and have to admit before 38 seconds it does sound like a headline bed. Very good though.

Where did you listen from? It was broadcasted?

I've tuned into a countdown at 48 seconds so there's got to have been one longer than that broadcast.

Also, why are the directors now cutting from the countdown to the headlines instead of mixing quickly, which looks so much better the few times I've seen it (just after the new countdown was launched).

BBC News 24 Just Aired a 60 Second countdown i think!

Anyone capture it?

I got bored during work today and came up with this. I think I matched the font (DIN 1451 Engschrift), color and all, but that wasn't the big deal. This is a standard frame countdown generated by Final Cut Pro and an effects package I have on my workstation. The only difference is the timebase is 30fps (29.97 precisely) for the NTSC (DV here) standard; PAL would be 25fps, naturally. The offset is 1800 frames (60 seconds x 30 frames) and starts at 00:59;29. The music joins at 00:58;29.

Download here: http://homepage.mac.com/turnertv/cdrender.mov

course you're not just showing off at having a lovely long version of the music are you

shame a nice quality MP3 couldn't work it's way into my inbox onto the web but alas.

It's the only version as far as I know not from a capture and direct from the source.

But no, not the reason. The countdown was fun to create. I've never had a use for that plugin before except when generating timecode for outside post production and edits and internal footage logging.

Should be interesting to see some new countdown mocks with the frame count added. I wonder if most will need to do it by hand?

Chances are it was done on a compositioning package, as there's not only the shots to be cut, but they've been graded and also had the beams added which would need something slightly more advanced to handle since it's mixing with live footage. Well it's not that difficult to do, once you get the basic perspective right.

My guess is a discreet package, like Flame or something, but i severly doubt the numbers were entered one by one. As said, there's plug-ins that generate numbers available and they're pretty flexible in what they can do.

Someone posted a link on another thread to this website where it gave the 30minute bulletin before the old 88 second countdown. I changed the date and time and could watch it. Obviously it is at the end though.

rtsp://stream2.blinkx.com/BBCNews24/20050404/20050404_BBCNews24_News_0030.rm

OOOOOO I LIKE THAT! Nice work on finding that!

Dejay