ITV ident films

[Aidan lunn]

What still exists of the animations of the company logo that you used to get befre an ITV programme (e.g. thames's rising skyline)? What i am really asking is do they still exist on their original recordings NOT the programmes that they were edited on to. Also, if anyone is out there who kno9ws this, how were they made. i know how the following were made:
Scottish television
1964-1968: playing about with card!
1985-1987: computer generated
grampian television
1961-?: again, playing with card!
1985-1987: computer generated
border television:
all three were created by a peice of card being held up in front of the camera. the colour ones were filmed by a black & white camera & coloured in electronically, making it easy to change the colour scheme.
granada:
all idents except the 1964 "from the north" animated arrow; as above i.e. coloured-in black & white image. 1986 30th birthday idents: computer generated
Yorkshire
1969 (B/W version & the subsequent still picture colour versions): these were the same as granada & border but recorded onto film with the music dubbed on.
1986: computer generated
Anglia: all filmed using clever lighting techniques & camera angles with the music dubbed on. the 1970 version (the first in colour had the "anglia presnts" superimposed onto the picture).
central:
1982: the "exploding moon" was created using models.
Ulster
1964 & 1970: as border & granada
TWW: 1958
as border (1st version)
ATV:
1956-1959: playing about with card with the big letters ATV superimposed. the word "presents" was hidden under a eice of black card that slid sideways.
thames :
1968: v1 (the "from thames" on black): playing aout with card
1968: v2 & all colour Thames idents up until 1984: stop motion animation (wallace & gromit) with a mirror representing the thames. the lettering THAMES was done in the same way., the reflection fading out by fading from the film of THAMES word to a still card. The skyline had the film of the word THAMES married to it.
1984: computer generated (this is the one with the dodgy london bridge)
LWT
1971 & 1978: stickyback plastic rolled onto a sheet of glass.
1986: all three versions done on computer
HTV
1987: computer
Southern:
1960: model
TVS:
1987: computer generated
Westward:
1964; 1968;1971;1978: all models
TSW:
1982: a variety of techniques. unfortunately the website i got this info for TSW v1 has closed down (the continuity-booth) & so i have forgotten how it was created.
1985: computer generated
channel
1985 & 1987 25th anniversary: computer generated.
i would especially like onfo on how the ATV "three coloured spotlights" animation was created. any replies welcome. this message was unusually long.

[Nosmo King]

The regional ITV company opening idents are nearly always present on the 2" master tapes of the programme (and also 1" masters until the start idents were discontinued c1988) .. where these tapes themselves still exist of course.

There are a handful of (filmed) programmes that never had them in the first place .. LWTs "Catweazel" and "Adventures of Black Beauty" are two (both co-funded programmes? Certainly the latter was).. and of course the ITC filmed series didn't have the company idents... as they weren't actually ATV programmes or even primarily aimed as productions for ITV screening.

In most cases digital remasters of the above carried these over as well .. though it seems far more common the "end captions" were replaced with more modern versions at this stage.

Many sales copies of the programmes however it seems either (a) do not have the idents intact ... or (b) these are snipped off by the broadcaster before screening. For DVD releases, the more specialist companies like Network or Umbrella almost always leave them intact .. when they are still there in the copies supplied to them.

How many of the original idents exist in their original film or tape format outside of their application at the start of specific programmes I don't know.

[David H]

One ITV ident which is almost certainly missing is the ident used by Associated Broadcasting Company (or ABC) in 1955; it was used for less than a month before the company was forced to rename itself Associated Television (ATV) after a legal challenge from Associated-British Picture Corporation, who was later to use the ABC name for their own ITV franchises. There's a still image of the 'original' ABC logo I've seen (perhaps on www.transdiffusion.org somewhere) that's taken from a book and it's just like the monochrome 'three eyes' ATV logo except for the different letters. Also does the WWN ident exist somewhere in the ITV (HTV) archive?

And (from memory) I think that broadcast quality versions of one or two of the early pre-1971 LWT idents were missing until a tape with them on recently resurfaced?

[Laurence Piper]

I think broadcast quality versions of the LWT idents would always have existed as they feature on a lot of early copies of their programmes (1968-69), of which LWT have kept more of than a lot of ITV companies. No idea about master reels of same though. Some companies no longer exist (e.g. Rediffusion, ABC, ATV) although their idents are still around in broadcast quality on the programmes.

[Andy Henderson]

During the heyday of '405 Alive', Andy Emmerson compiled two tapes of all the idents he could lay his hands on. These contain hours of scanned original slides and captions (early ITV mostly) and have (for content) never been bettered. No chance of a commercial release though. I have a duplicate set of these, but they obviously only of a very minority interest.