Antiques Roadshow (1984)

Concept and creative process

The title sequence for series 6 of ‘Antiques Roadshow’ was an entirely new limited animation sequence in sepia ink and umber wash drawings. The scenario for the new title sequence placed the emphasis on the queues of people who attended, each one clutching their prized collectable, and on the valuation of objects by the expert eye of the specialist, able to pick up clues to the origin and value of an object from the smallest of marks. The animation was rendered in pen, ink and wash drawings on paper with 4 frame mixes, known as soft cuts, between key frames of the action, rather than full animation which would have required at least 12, or even 24 frames of drawn animation for each second of screen time. However, this style was well suited to the jauntiness of the title music, the Allegro from Wendy Carlos’s ‘Switched-On’ Moog synthesiser version of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No 3.