Are stings the things such as: a small VT of maybe a sport item coming up next? Example: news channel going to sport, show a sport VT. Is this a sting? By a sport VT, I don't mean the whole item, just something like a 10 second video piece that is like an intro for the sport item.
Is a bumper things they stick in before going to adverts?
Are idents things like the 4 logo on channel 4, that identifies the channel you're watching?
Are stings the things such as: a small VT of maybe a sport item coming up next? Example: news channel going to sport, show a sport VT. Is this a sting? By a sport VT, I don't mean the whole item, just something like a 10 second video piece that is like an intro for the sport item.
Is a bumper things they stick in before going to adverts?
Are idents things like the 4 logo on channel 4, that identifies the channel you're watching?
Thank you.
Think you're pretty much right.
Stings are usually used within programmes as signposts to a particular segment.
Bumpers tend to be used by commercial channels at the beginning and end of a break as a channel identifier.
A "break flash" is the really short (less than 12 frames usually) flash of a logo inbetween adverts.
While we're on the subject of 'things one has (read as I have) always wondered but was too embarrassed to ask', the word 'aston' has confused me for a while. Is it merely another name for a 'super' (superimposed caption) or is there more to it?
In typical BBC fashion, dear old Auntie often chose to use different names for things than the rest of the industry. As mentioned above, "Aston" is often used as a name for any super-imposed caption but is in fact the manufacturer of one of the industry-standard Caption Generators. Often Directors will say "go Aston" when the generator involved could be made by any number of companies. The BBC more often championed the use of "Super" for captions, but this was mainly from the days before computer generated captions were commonplace. Captions were rolls of paper on scrolling caption stands and so "Super" was far more appropriate.
As for "Ident", that's commonly used now for the station Identifying logo shown before programmes and often with continuity announcements overlaid. The BBC always called this "The Symbol", stemming from the days of the BBC Television Service Symbol ("The Batwings"). When there was just one "Symbol" for each channel, this name made a bit more sense than now - could you really describe those ludicrous dancers as a symbol ?
"Stings" are IMO short programme or station idents with a music stab. Like a radio jingle. The BBC used to use these on BBC 1 and 2 until the Dancers / Yellow-Purple branding of recent, but they called them "Animations" !