IdentsA PRESENTATION BY JACK MILLS

What is an Ident?>Short for Identification.>A short sequence (generally animated in some way) shown between programmes to identify the channel.>Used in Television, Radio and the Internet.

Idents in television.________________________________________________________________________________________________________

History:>Some of the first Idents to be used in the UK were shown on the BBC in 1953 until 1960, this was the “Television symbol” as there were no other identifiers being shown popularly; with the arrival of commercial television there was a need for Idents as other television channels began to enter the scene.

>1963 brought the first incarnation of the “globe” Ident that the BBC would use until 2002, lasting a staggering 39 years.

Colour:>1969 saw the introduction of colour television on BBC.

>This was the first iteration of the “mirror globe” effect, outlining the new feature of colour broadcast.

Later on:>Over the years, BBC made various adaptations of the globe effect for their Ident before moving onto different things in 2002.

>As technology advanced, their Idents became more and more complex graphically, requiring dedicated CG artists.

Idents on air.________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Idents in radio:>Idents are often used in current radio, but they’re created differently, to be more memorable via audio – Things you can easily recall if you were to think of a particular radio station.

>Heart radio is a good example of this, as the popular “106.2” briefly sung between songs and speech so people know what station they are on.

Idents on the internet.________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Idents in live streaming:>Having an Ident on a live stream is becoming more popular as live streaming becomes more popular overall – especially for gaming.

>There are no rules regarding this unlike radio and television where it is law.

>This is often not done in the same way as it on radio or television, a lot of them instead having a small logo in the corner of their stream so as to remind people what channel they are on.

Idents in live streaming cont.:

>Some streams have been creative and added short animations to the beginning and end of their live streams – Some even hiring graphic design companies to create these for them.

>A popular place for streams for gaming is Twitch, where people can actually earn money doing so, and having an Ident may be an integral part of income so people know where they are.

Idents on YouTube:>As YouTube became more popular, more people who created channels rose to fame with quality content that people enjoyed.

>It became apparent to some YouTubers that there needs to be a way to identify their channel simply from the video they show.

>One example (below) is Tobuscus, who owns a popular gaming YouTube channel, shows the name of his channel briefly before his videos.

Idents in film.________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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“The Big Six”:

Idents in Cinema:>In Cinemas it is important to these companies that their Ident is easy to remember and visualize, so that when they advertise whatever film they have funded, people remember it sometimes solely for who created it – This is especially prevalent with Disney.

>In some cases, people will watch something on the fundamental basis of it being by that company – again, very prevalent for Disney.

> Some of these companies also changed their Ident just to fit with the current movie – e.g. Warner Bros with the Harry Potter series.

Thank you!