Concept and creative process
I was asked to create a new title sequence for BBC One’s prime time TV show ‘Auntie's Cracking New Bloomers‘ to be aired on Christmas Day 1999. One of the three ideas I presented, I did not think the producer would go for, as most graphics on TV at that time were 3D heavy, sparkly and quite cheesy. Not my style! I presented a very flat graphic style on a mustard yellow vintage colour background, with 3D animating televisions that looked like toys. A style very different to other offerings at that time. To my surprise and pleasure the producer went for it! I worked with Andy MacNamara, an in-house 3D animator, who brought my storyboards to life. He animated the televisions, which I then composited into the background and created the 30 second sequence in Quantel Hal. The brief was to build a title sequence that could be updated frequently by dropping in new clips and new titles for each show update. So when I built the titles, I did it to facilitate this. The idea for the titles was a factory making TV’s. As they pass through quality control, the ‘bloomers’ are rejected. The title sequence follows the journey of the bloomers through the factory’s quality control and ultimately onto the reject pile of bloomers that we see on the show. ‘Auntie's Bloomers Best Bits’, aired in February 2000, is an example of one of the revised title sequences built with this template. There were a further ten or more shows that year that aired in this style, culminating in ‘Auntie’s Sparkling Bloomers’ on Christmas Eve 2000.