I quite like the new look, I suppose its more in line with their current programmes, being ITV's youthful sister channel. The breakbumpers are random. (funny show clips being looped) The previous look was nice, but was too 'ITV' this allows the channel branding to be more cheekier. The new ECP looks a bit better.
Last edited by dbl on 12 August 2015 8:29pm - 2 times in total
It looks "fresher" but I can't until I see it in action on screen. They are probably still making what I consider to be their biggest annoyance - CAs with unbearable voices.
Yoof formats seem to equal annoying CA's. Jen Long on BBC Three had to be the worst of the lot.
There was a CA on e4 a few weeks back that sounded elderly, unconfident and tired. Andrew Hayden-Smith's brushed off Geordie accent grates on ITV2. As for Jen Long, since she left BBC3, they have some imitation of her that is ten times worse.
I don't think anyone can be as Mockney as Jen Long was on Three despite being Welsh!
I like Andrew Hayden-Smith, but his voice-over is better suited to ITV4/Dave/Quest.
I don't know them by name but the "resident bloke" on E4 (he does some stuff on Channel 4 too IIRC) is by far the most tolerable simply because of how natural he sounds. Everybody else seems to put on this horrific "let's make everybody over 35 feel out of place" voice. I'm 23 and I feel out of place...
It looks "fresher" but I can't until I see it in action on screen. They are probably still making what I consider to be their biggest annoyance - CAs with unbearable voices.
Yoof formats seem to equal annoying CA's. Jen Long on BBC Three had to be the worst of the lot.
There was a CA on e4 a few weeks back that sounded elderly, unconfident and tired. Andrew Hayden-Smith's brushed off Geordie accent grates on ITV2. As for Jen Long, since she left BBC3, they have some imitation of her that is ten times worse.
I don't think anyone can be as Mockney as Jen Long was on Three despite being Welsh!
I like Andrew Hayden-Smith, but his voice-over is better suited to ITV4/Dave/Quest.
I don't know them by name but the "resident bloke" on E4 (he does some stuff on Channel 4 too IIRC) is by far the most tolerable simply because of how natural he sounds. Everybody else seems to put on this horrific "let's make everybody over 35 feel out of place" voice. I'm 23 and I feel out of place...
Just to get this out of the way: using the word "dated" is probably the worst way to describe the previous package. How is it in anyway "dated"? Ignoring the fact that "dated" is such a horrible cliche to describe something anyway, the package itself is less than three years old, and if anything was "dated" it was the last package used before the 2013 rebrand which was well worn out by the time it was replaced.
Anyway. I was skeptical when I first saw this - but seeing that the work was completed by ManvsMachine gave me a little hope. Sure enough, MvM already have a webpage up, and it's very similar to what they did for 4seven, but perhaps even more ambitious (emphasis mine):
Quote:
Rather than a delivering a pre-packaged set of idents, we worked with ITV Creative to develop an automated modular play-out system that assembles idents on the fly. Like a digital tombola, the system randomly sequences snippets from bespoke ITV2 branded ’scenes’.
This results in over 300,000 ident iterations
, or to put it another way, you would have to stay tuned-in for 36 years to enjoy every possible combination.
Whereas the presentational elements away from the idents change on 4seven, it's the idents themselves on ITV2 that change away from other presentational elements (or at least, there is nothing else on that page described as being "algorithmically created"). Needless to say, this is going to drive barcode (and anyone else attempting to capture as many of these as possible!) mad.
I'm doing the reckless thing of posting an opinion without seeing it on TV first, but: I'm torn on this. The previous idents had a hint of the surreal but were still ITV2 enough - these are just surreal, plain and simple. No soundtrack. Don't get me wrong - the previous set may have gotten tiring after a while, but at least they were fun, or charming. It's like they're trying to be E4 or Dave but not quite getting there.
One thing that does stand out as being a bad choice is the cyan (teal?) and black colour scheme for the break bumpers and end boards. It's almost (not exactly) the invert of the previous, bold red and white. It looks quite boring and perhaps even sterile.
Maybe it'll grow on me, and again, I'll have to actually see it in use - but for now I don't think they've quite succeeded.
After finally seeing this on TV I have a mixed reaction.
I was a fan of the whole of the last set. The idents were silly yet simple scenes and reflected an audience who may not yet take life so seriously. The package had such a nice design especially transitions.
The new package is just a bit 'MEH' imo. I don't like the black and cyan/teal/peppermint. Imo it could have used a wide range of mixed colours similar to their new idents.
The transitions between trailers with those flying '2's' looks awful. The credit squeeze uses a weird cover up technique that works better than shrinking but does get in the way of the credits for a second or so. I don't like how the squeeze now differs from the other channels.
I like the tombola effect to the idents, but they're a bit boring especially with the lack of music.
I think it could work a little better with the strict black and 'shade of blue-green' pres.
Maybe this year we'll see something for Christmas... Hmm.
EDIT: I've only just realised how similar to GOLD this idea is with the images cut during the ident representing things like 'Rock & Roll', jam with traffic jam noises, 'a smashing time', the hot dog sausage dog.
Even the DOG enters horribly.
They're promoting 9 shows as their big autumn season. The MOBO Awards is a one off, I'm guessing Keith's Back to the future tribute will be the same. The xtra factor & get me out of here now are spin offs. The only new programme is The Almost Impossible Game Show. They may as well promote You've Been Framed & Two & A Half Men repeats as they also fill up a lot of prime time.
Last edited by fanoftv on 13 August 2015 8:23pm - 2 times in total
Like others, i'm not sure on this refresh. Haven't had chance to see much yet so don't want to say too much yet, but I liked the red look. It looked smart but fun. They have now tried to become E4/BBC Three when there wasn't really a need to.
I do like the fun side though, but some of it now looks a mess.
I saw a bit earlier this evening, coming out of an ad break, it showed the single logo on teal background, then showed the mass of logos in two shades in lines, then showed the single logo again, then showed a promo. I don't know if it was meant to happen, but it looked terrible!
I need to watch more bits yet to decide properly, and to see if that sort of transition happens all the time or if it was a mistake.
I quite like the idents, how they all mix, and how the lengths of each bit changes, but wish they had some sort of music on. Its quite jarring with so many sudden sound changes.
I'm not sure if this happens to everyone but me and a couple of mates all reacted the same way when seeing the two lines of logos into and out of break during two and a half men and it messed with all of out eyes.
One thing i've just thought about these idents is how quickly they will get boring and/or annoying.
You see basically everything in a single ident, so yes there may be 300,000 playout options, but it doesn't matter if they ident starts with flippers, then fans, then jam, then rock, then tea, then hotdogs, then clocks, or starts with tea, then flippers then..... etc you are seeing it all. It's not like with standard idents, were you get one single ident at 2pm, then a different one at 3pm, then another different one at 4pm etc, so you get a break from each one. Hope this makes sense.
I know they have done a lot of films they can use in the idents, but I think they should have done a lot more, but I guess that comes down to cost.
I'm confused about what it actually is that changes between each variation of the idents, could somebody explain?
I think it's just different cuts in the short clips they use, so as tomo359 said having 300,000 possibly permutations counts for little as essentially all the idents look the same.
I'm confused about what it actually is that changes between each variation of the idents, could somebody explain?
Basically they filmed lot of different random things, like biscuits falling into cups of tea, rock rolling down, fans blowing ties etc, and each ident plays a selection of these in random orders and lengths of times showing each one. So for example, one ident may start with cups of tea which plays for 4 seconds, then fans playing for 1 second, then rock for 5 seconds, then tea again for 2 seconds, then hotdogs for 8 seconds etc.
So they haven't got just 8 or so idents to pick from, they have over 300,000 versions of the same ident basically. Check out The Ident Gallery to see what I mean.... http://theident.gallery/itv2-2015.php