New 'music' themed Channel 4 idents

At first all you can see is a collection of disparate blocks on a bed of torn flyposters, interspersed with human figures. When you move to the front of the vast white space, the number 4 materialises in 3D.

This is the Whitechapel Gallery, London, but the detritus-strewn room is not the latest art installation. It is the set of Channel 4's new series of on-air trails, or idents, promoting its musical output. "One of the biggest challenges is to have the ident there but not to intrude too much as it is a music promo," says director Kjetil Njoten. "We want to bring them together and get the artists on board for that."

The artists being filmed are among the most exciting up-and-coming bands in the UK: the Horrors; Unkle Jam; Jack Penate; Bat for Lashes; the Noisettes; and Patrick Wolf, whose regalia looks like Vivienne Westwood's take on Hitler youth chic. "They all have their own distinctive style, and occupy such different areas of the musical landscape that it would have been great to give each their own set," says Njoten. "It is impossible to do that, so we have to make it feel uniquely them, through their character and through their music."

C4 reckons that at least 12 promos will be extracted from the single day's filming. They will be broadcast in March to promote its New Music Month, which will include the NME awards.

The previous week C4's in-house creative services team filmed established female singers such as Sophie Ellis Bextor and Corinne Bailey Rae. The channel has already broadcast promos featuring U2 and the Killers.

http://media.guardian.co.uk/mediaguardian/story/0,,2021114,00.html

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Interesting stuff.

Sounds like The Killers and U2 "promo" clips which were used as trailers when C4 had themed weekends based around them.


I think though it sounds like the misuse of the word "ident". They could get played around the programming, but I think they'll generally be used as promos.


Talking of idents though, anyone know what C4 are holding back the "Old Man" ident?

Saw one of these for the first time last night - looks pretty cool too.


Basically loads of girls sitting around listening to music sitting on glass blocks which make up the 4.

Seen another one over the last couple of nights - not as nice as the glass one, but the same idea with this time an upright 4 made out of - well, I'm not quite sure really!

I don't understand why they don't use these music themed idents/promos to introduce the shows themselves. I remember seeing the Killers ident and the U2 one, but they didn't use either of them on the "4music presents" strand.

I saw a couple of them today, they're very good

I've only seen the female artists / glass blocks one so far, but was interested to see that it actually formed a partially 'broken' version of the '4', with a few of the end blocks completely detatched and slanted, such as the smallest piece missing from the top.