OFi Sunday titles
TV presenter and DJ Chris Evans returned to our TV screens in November with a new show for ITV1. Entitled OFi Sunday (Oh Flip it’s Sunday), the live late-night show is Evans’ first vehicle as presenter and producer through his production company UMTV.
Media-agency Fold7 created the show’s animated Bewitched-style opening titles, ad break tie-ins, as well as the graphics used during the show such as game scoreboards. With clients that include Orange, Ministry of Sound, Nike, the Sci-fi Channel and Sky Interactive, Fold7 used its ten years of experience in the creative industry to help it win the job in what proved to be a particularly competitive seven-way pitch.
“TV is becoming increasingly competitive,” explains Nic Freeman, Fold7’s motion-graphics designer. “It’s a cruel irony that as budgets have dropped over the last few years, more and more companies are being asked to pitch on individual briefs even for tiny budgets. It’s all driven by the fact that the hardware and software required to produce TV graphics is becoming more affordable, and this in turn leading to more people setting up shop.”
Fold7’s approach hinged on two things – great character design and the show’s logo. “Having worked with the client before, we presented several different illustration styles and as many logos as we could design in the time,” says Freeman. “Luckily, UMTV loved our logos and illustrations and were happy to evolve the sequence around them.”
Gareth Collett, series producer at UMTV says, “Fold7’s illustrations and storyboards aptly and creatively captured the spirit and humour of Chris Evans through a highly likable and engaging character animation.”
Having decided on portraying Evans as an animated character, Fold7’s next challenge was to create a character the client and the man himself was happy with. “When you’re creating a caricature it’s always a challenge, especially when the subject is the show’s executive producer!” says Freeman.
“We produced several designs, one of which Chris Evans actually thought was a joke that one of the producers had put us up to drawing (see small colour sketch in the right-hand column). We thought it was cute, but on reflection, perhaps it wasn’t that flattering.”
Evans hosts the show from a set that is made to look like the top of a skyscraper, with an accompanying skyline similar to the old US TV show Bewitched. “When you look at the Bewitched title sequence, there isn’t that much there – just characters and a skyline,” says Freeman.
Quite a lot of our own design went into it with more detailed 1950s inspired illustrations using Bewitched as a starting point, but creating a new visual style from it that was richer, and more modern,” he says.
Freeman and Fold7 artist Dave Horwood began by repeatedly listening to the title track to plan the animation so that it would work with the client’s script in terms of timings. They also brainstormed ideas for extra background elements, such as the dog peeing against a tree, which would add interest and help the sequence stand up to repeated viewing.
Frame rate
Horwood created a rough animatic, which was used to judge the frame rate of the animation. The characters were hand drawn, then scanned and coloured in Photoshop. The backgrounds were drawn in Illustrator, because it suited the angular Bewitched-style, says Freeman.
The various elements were finally composited and animated using Adobe After Effects and Maxon Cinema 4D. “Cinema 4D is great because it has such fantastic integration with After Effects,” says Freeman. “For example, we had to animate a scene where Chris shoots through the roof of a skyscraper. We did the 3D in Cinema 4D with a toon-shader to integrate with the backgrounds drawn in Illustrator. We could then take it into After Effects where we could line it up with 3D layers and particle effects seamlessly.”
Fold7 also produced break bumpers, contact straps, looping backgrounds and several other small animations for specific items on the show. “Although the budget wasn’t huge, it was important to provide these small elements to help the graphics fully brand the show, rather than be just a flashy top and tail that seems detached from the whole,” says Freeman.
Tutorial by Lynn Wright, DIGIT magazine © IDG 2006
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“We felt an animated character could best reflect Chris’ appeal and give us a strong base for a comedic story with a retro, tongue in cheek ambiance,” says Freeman.
Fold7, www.fold7.co.uk