Official Discussion On C4’s New Look

But isn't it great? It's like a mini movie, and I love it!

It has to be my favourite out of the set, they are all warming to me, even the boring ones Pylons and Hay Stacks. I especially love the way that one of the floating hay stacks is on fire.

I wonder how they will do special idents now, it will be interesting, especially if they do a Celebrity Big Brother one.

And even though it's only just going, I can't wait until Next Christmas to see what they can come up with, hopefully something!

I really like the idents, not only do they look great on screen, its the sense of enjoyment from seeing them, *In a strange sense of way *

I've downloaded all of the Idents currently being shown on C4, and my favourate is the Pylons one, may be boring to you, but I LOVE the music that goes along with it. Have a listen.

I don't know if this has been mentioned before, but C4 have just used a menu which first showed E4 tonight, then C4 tomorrow night, then tonight's C4 schedule, spinning the face of the screen round on a cube (a la Mac OS X). It looks really good, not seen this before.

I've seen it used for before for E4 / C4 or promoting a forthcoming promo on 4, then next.

It does look good, but can be confusing as it doesn't distinguish between days and channels, so the voiceover does most the job. Better than any other channels efforts though!

If I may be a cheeky colonial (ahem): I agree with you about the idents (which i've viewed on thetvroom.com) . Great imaginative concept but unfortunate choice of execution. Grey clouds, a housing estate that makes Beirut look good, road works? And what is with the overtly American 'downtown', 'diner' , and 'alien'? Is Channel 4 now based in California?

To my foreign eye the images are depressing, dull, hardly uplifting to the spirit, or too American and all of them lack any positive reflection of the United Kingdom for viewers (except for your renowned design capability). Couldn't they have chosen a sunny day for the street market ident at least? I've lived in the UK- I know you have *some* sunny days!

The music they've chosen isn't that bad, and I love the menus and promos, fresh and lively. If only the images in the idents could match.

yeah i got caught out by this after desperate housewives on E4 yesterday - it was the first time i'd seen it used. I had no idea what it was all about and got totally confused. It whizzes around so fast that, if you're not careful to listen to everything the CA is saying, you lose the thread and end up thinking that three different programmes are on next!!!!

James

I agree with you about the lack of sun, the thing is that we don't get much sun at all this time of year, at the moment the weathers blowing gales and flooding cities.
Perhaps Channel 4 have this planned and may use seasonal idents over the year, it would make it nice and diverse and mean that we wouldn't get too sick of them.

I did quite like the cube style menu's, the only critism with them is that they had no indication as to when they were for. It could have been executed better by having the day/channel appear, fading off and then have the menu scroll quickly up the left picking out the points in the schedule.

What has interested me the most out of this new look is the fact that they aren't separating the schedule at all. You can see any of the idents throughout the day at any point, or in other words they have no 4 Breakfast, 4 Daytime or 4 Learning Idents, with 4 Learning shocking me the most, unless today's section wasn't 4 Learning, though it was filled with programmes about Art and Schools, though it did have trailers for channel 4 programmes within it.

It is odd at breakfast not to even have a clock on screen though after they made it present last January.

I'm not so much concerned about Daytime as the pre relaunch daytime look were simply menu slides.

The menu isn't crystal clear, but like the idents they treat the viewers with a bit of intelligence and let them work it out for themselves.

As for the brands - often they aren't implemented immediately after a revamp, in the past it's taken a few months.

I notice Channel 4 are still using the "20 Questions" promos with the celebrities answering questions.

They've been updated and now include the cast of Desperate Housewives. However, the ending of it remains a coloured screen, though now with a 3D 4 logo in white. Looks horrendous - the logo just doesn't work in white - it looks much better coloured on a white background!

Good point.

I suppose that R&J presents the following problem(s):

The rushed way in which R&J always ends allows no time for an ECP, and the Cactus endcap often fades in dangerously close to the end of the closing music, right?

This allows little/no scope for the (oviously superimposed live) white-area-with-a-"whatever-coloured"-4-in-it to be mixed in, right?

So, the Cactus endcap would HAVE to have a white new style "4" fully integrated (i.e. like on Channel 4 News' ITN endcap), wouldn't it?

BUT, because the background of the Cactus endcap is not a single matt colour (like the ITN endcap is), a white new style "4" would perhaps look messy against the Cactus endcap's intricate background, wouldn't it?

However, surely they could change the background of the Cactus endcap to a single matt colour to get round the problem?

Well, Cactus seem to be using a full screen endcap now. The official C4 rules is the end cap must be on the left-half of the screen, with C4 superimposing their logo live on the right hand side - but as you said it's unlikely it'll happen on Richard and Judy.