Concept and creative process
Titles for a series which offers another look at the world through the eyes of David Frost, with Ronnie Barker, Ronnie Corbett, Sheila Steafel and Julie Felix. The opening titles for ‘Frost Over England’ were made by Roy Laughton, one of the earliest designers employed in the late 1950s in the BBC’s embryonic Graphic Design Department. By 1967 his work had grown in confidence and technical mastery of the medium. Live action was used in the opening of this sequence, filmed with the co-operation of David Frost and achieving a more interesting introduction to the show’s presenter, with his face reflected in the chrome finish of his Rolls-Royce. The union flag fluttering in the breeze was used as a title background, as was the same image printed on a carrier bag carried by a young shopper. The remainder of the sequence was familiar territory – a sequence of stills of London, Londoners and Frost himself, shot under a rostrum camera but with additional distortions achieved in-camera, which added interest. The panning titles were shot on the rostrum too and combined with the live action freeze-frame of the carrier bag which mixed to black to enable the credit for David Frost to hold over the shot of the presenter in the studio.
The programme was the Winner of the Golden Rose & International Press Prize at the 1967 Montreux Festival.
In 1966 Roy Laughton had produced a small book ‘TV Graphics’, published by Studio Vista, the first on the subject. A copy of this book is lodged in the Ravensbourne University Library. It gives an overview of the state of the art both nationally and internationally at that point in time.