Concept and creative process
A weekly programme which reviewed the previous week's BBC programmes. The title sequence contained contained specially shot live action composited in a 3D CGI generated environment. Mark Shirra recollects his work on this show: “The brief was to create a title sequence that reflected a youth-targeted magazine-style review show for television. This was the first title sequence I was given to do on my own, I think it was about a 3 week deadline. I got the title music early on, and luckily had a really progressive producer, who signed off on some mood boards which indicated the look and feel I was going for. My idea was to show various people, constantly on the move through media ‘cube’ environments, immersed in projected content. I shot all of the background video screen content on the department’s coveted mini DV camera. The aquatic footage was shot at the London Aquarium, the lava lamp was filmed at home. All of the 3D was done in Infini-D on the Mac, the video texture maps were treated and graded in After Effects. I wanted to do a camera move which suggested a motion control solution would be needed, but we had nowhere near the budget for that. Rostrum cameramen Colin and Laurie came up with the inspired idea of placing people on a rotating turntable and zooming the camera to get a similar effect. All the people in the live action DigiBeta shoot were generous co-workers! Keying, tracking and all of the compositing was done in After Effects. At the time I felt the end logo animation was a little rushed and simplistic because of meeting the looming deadline, but I now think that was a blessing in disguise. Also, you can’t go wrong with Eurostile Extended, my favourite font!”