4Sight: The Changing Face of Four
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ก.ย. 2024
- Channel Four is 40 years old today. Hip, edgy, alternative, avant-garde: those are all things it hasn't been for a long time, hence its having lasted so long. Still, it's always been careful not to act, or more importantly look, too much like anyone else. This video celebrates its various visual identities, from unsettling CGI screen monsters, to Kay's catalogue in motion, to flouncy-dressed apple-pickers, to alarmed sundials, to endless knocking on the fourth wall, to unexpected alfresco TV sets, to detached circular windows on reality, to stripey chill-out, to optical illusions, to surrealist video art and tumbling blocks...all this and more makes four decades of Four.
www.bobthefish....
'Disabled lesbians made of pubic hair' is probably the most accurate description of 1980s Channel 4 content I've ever heard.
Who remembers “without walls” and a wondering armadillo scrambling in the opening credits?
Channel 4 have now gone full course correction from the 2015 set. To begin with, it seems like they made a point of using the revised logo everywhere BUT the idents - the revised logo was all over News, Sport and was giant in their print ads. Then, they modified all the sub-brands to include it when they introduced the Giant. As of Wednesday, they've rolled out a multi-coloured generic ident alongside new break bumpers.
New Channel 4 idents released, and they're probably the best ones they've had for a good few years.
Nice to see this documentary updated. Saw it on the homepage, went to a random point to see what had changed since I played it to death a few years ago, ended up watching the whole thing! Also nice to find out who designed that lovely music for the Schools Gallery in the 90s - trying to work out if that ever got released commercially...
Loving all your videos mate.
I still remember having the piss taken out of me for pointing out how weird it was "ITV schools" was on Channel 4.
It didn't make sense, but as you say, no one else cared.
ITV schools also did "the gallery" between programmes throughout the late 1970's and early 1980's.
4Sight was the first video of yours that I saw and it's great to see an updated version for Channel 4's 40th. :)
Apparently the Channel 4 privatisation has been quietly dropped. Something I very much hope is true.
Considering this plan came from someone who publicly stated that Channel 4 costs the taxpayer money (it doesn't and never has) and confuses the terms "competing with" and "getting bought out by" I am very much relieved.
I didn't even know it was publicly owned.
@@jean-lucpicard5510 Yeah, Channel 4 is publicly owned by funded entirely by advertising. It was started in 1982 as a branch of the IBA and thus ITV ran adverts on the channel for the first ten years. Since then it's been independent from ITV, has to sell and run its own adverts but is still publicly owned.
If it was privartised, it would immediately be bought out by some American multinational the same way Channel 5 was bought out by Viacom and Sky (set up by Rupert Murdoch) was eventually bought out by Comcast after 21st Century Fox's merger with Disney.
Whilst every other 7-8 year old on the playground was swaping teenage muntant nunja turtle stickers or talking about football. I was the weird kid who consantly wanted to know why it was called ITV Schools on Channel 4 and no teacher ever being able to answer that qustion OR understanding why it even mattered.
😂
Me too. I don't think that's a weird thing to have noticed, tho.
22:06 probably the weirdest era of Channel 4 idents
OMG EXCELLENT SO Talented, fave bumper doc along with the square peg
Cool you’re making a remake
"Fourscore was changed"
I LOVED Fourscore. It was the LOGO that scared the shit out of me as a kid!
Channel 4 terrified me, Because of David Bloody Dundas
That 4 is still smiling at me,creepy!
Ahh this is a classic TH-cam video nice to see you're still about
@@markc8956 what do you mean 'smilling?'
Enjoyed the remake a lot. Thanks!
Amazing to see some actual footage of Motel... It's about as odd as I expected.
Just like your ITV logo docs, the BSB series and almost all the stuff here, another champion programme (as we'd say up North). I ran Impossible TV wot made Motel, the sequel Ginger Forrest and a couple of animated sketch show pilots Pen Monkeys and Sex Bar. Yes, C4 were naming shows like My Massive C**k all those decades ago, I never liked the brain logo we did to replace the 3D wireframe one either. We were told in no circumstances whatsoever could we use anything sounding like the original C4 jingle. All the senior bods at C4 hated the amount of money that went to Mr Composer Man, and he had lawyers scrutinizing every new tune or jingle to make sure they weren't too similar.
Motel was allegedly located in the gaps between the lines that made up the (very analogue, very SD, not even widescreen TV pictures of the time. The idea was hammered out, they asked for 13 weeks' worth and then said it had to be on air in five weeks' time. It was just before the Christmas break. I said eek, the entire staff of the company started to cry, and the commissioning editor said if we couldn't be on air by then he'd pick something that could. He was bluffing, we got some extra time (a week) and stumbled on air randomly with the kind of nonsense that we kinda kept doing for years.
I won't explain the format as C4 would give us a list of timings and a schedule and we'd make bits around that - some were a whole 2 minutes long, lots 30s. Our greatest achievement were an Easter special (4Later aired Thu-Sun so perfect for that), where Bill the shoe salesman died, Nixon the (Ally McBeal) baby was implied to be Jesus, and Mr Patchioulli, who ran the place acted like God. Or it was That's My Hat!, a spoof gameshow format where a minute of footage of hats on a conveyor belt was scrupulously animated (well, 10s from a few different angles) and then at the end someone beeped in and said the catchphrase, Or 30s of Bill peeing, groaning and yodelling along. Or... well, there was lots. The sequel even premiered in prime time, linking Frasier, Friends and other proper, big, real shows. C4 were flooded with complaints at our cgi version of Posh Spice talking entierely in innuendos and failing to interview Sean Lock, her celebrity guest, on the vaguely knob-shaped sofa.
And then we did teen shows, then kids, and then, in the weirdest possible turn, ended upp making many preschool series. I mean, from animated flith (as the Daily Mail called us - I was so proud) to 'charming kids' shows', a quote here which made me smile from the floor where I'd fallen in shock at seeing all this for the first time in 20+ years. So thank you for that, Mr Fish (or can I call you Bob) and if you ever want to make a documentary about the weirdities of thru-the-night animated filth, the hilariousness of which involved us pretending to recognise the cultural and arty references of the v clever C4 bosses (we did a Kurosawa spoof, and one of La Jete, before settling more for knob jokes and surreality as they were easier to do)... anyway that kinda stuff seems to slot right in with - and I use this word entirely as a tribute to our 4Later overloads Stephen and Zizi - your oeuvre
That is marvellous stuff! May I just say, the idea of yourself and Mr Fish collaborating on a video about the likes of Motel and Ginger Forrest is something that I'd dearly love to see, and, I suspect, many others.
This might be the best comment I've ever read on anything.
Excellent video mate, a great rework of the older one and nice to see some "new" 80s/90s clips with improved sound and video quality to boot :) As for a new 2022 rebranding, if ever there was a time to do it surely that would be today but no doubt their plans to do that were knackered by those great party poopers in No10 :/
They do seem to have some new break bumpers.
@@applemask I noticed that during Countdown.
Incidentally, the Fourscore jingle actually sounds quite effective slowed down!
I remember the 1992 score very well and liked it, especially the first version with the chimes.
Weren't you Taoiseach?
I hate to disagree with you, but I still think those oblique tracking shot idents are genius. Ironically, the idents are among the best things about C4 these days. Ever since Big Brother it turned more into Channel 404.
That barking duck tho... 😂
Channel 4 was a revolution when it started. Just so innovative : The Snowman, their film side, showing foreign films, US imports(like Cheers, Hill Street Blues, St. Elsewhere, etc.), comedy(Drop the Dead Donkey, Whose Line Is It Anyway), documentaries(Equinox and Without Walls), etc.
How do you feel about Channel 4 unifying their channels under one brand "Channel 4", including their streaming service that people still call "4OD" despite All4 being an name since 2015?
Sounds good to me.
This is the video that Channel 4 themselves should have made. How come they didn't ask you?
To paraphrase Michael French from RetroBlasting: the fans are doing the best work. And you must be a fan (Four Score and flying blocks notwithstanding, of course)
Are Channel 4 even aware they're 40 today? Nothing on the schedules, nothing on the website
FIlm4 is showing P'tang, Yang, Kipperbang at 1:25 a.m. this morning, if that counts!
They got Paul Coia in to do the continuity into Countdown.
Probably used all the budget getting the old stings & idents out of storage for the "It's a Sin" drama. 😉🤔
15:20 Why am i getting flashbacks of the Aliens dropship flying over Hadleys hope. Can it be it this inspired it, or a practical effects member who did this, worked on the Aliens movie?
Woah, this is a nice surprise
For me that tapping thing was more terrifying and annoying than the blocks and Four Score. The anticipation of people sticking their fingers into the screen, the annoying sound of the tap, and as an added bonus often the smug, self-satisfied smile of the person doing the tapping (as inevitably embodied by Chris Evans)
'My parents told me I'd never learn anything from television...THEY WERE WRONG!!!'
That's nice, dear. Sausages or beefburgers?
Very nice update of the original video, although I must ask this, did you have any fun re-recording the line "1984, guitars and lasers WOOOO"?
Little bit, yeah.
This is superb, Matthew. THANK YOU so much for doing this. I have to say I didn't like the circles at the time, buit your commentary of them has made me reappraise them. They're not bad.
Channel 4 is the only station not to change their ident
Their logo.
@@glassowlie that’s what I said
The "Schools move to Channel 4" trailer - the TV studio appears to be a recording of Bullseye....
(Education connection: Jim Bowen was a deputy headmaster before he became a full-time comic).
Also,Central Television (the ITV West Midlands franchise) were responsible for schools playout I think prior to the move and then following the move to 4. As they also made Bullseye (from Central's Nottingham studios at the time), it's why it appeared in the trailer. Central did the playout of Schools from their Birmingham studios.
19:54 was the Open College package that Channel 4 used as an alternative to the Open University on BBC... Didn't last long as I remember
1:03:51 The Four Blocks steel giant. Or, as I call it “My Neighbour Totoro meets British Steel.”
It has been nothing short of tragic to see C4 gradually become "just another channel". It still is better than ITV, but only very just.
It would have been interesting to see how a possible "ITV2" that launched in 1970 or 1977 have been (which probably could have been similar to the old National Educational Television system in the US); or, for that matter, the proposed Open Broadcasting Authority (which I think would have been similar to Australia's Special Broadcasting Service).
it is
When they remake a film, it's never as good as the original one.
The same applies to the Channel 4 logo.
I actually screwed up my face and said "Eugh" when I first saw the circles.
Thanks Applemask again
Great video. Would love to know more about the failed 1992 version though. (I think you've found out more than anyone else I have seen). I think the only ones I don't like are the coffee stains (although I liked the idea, the execution was a little odd at times), and the idents that came with the current blocks look. But I do love the tumbling blocks as a whole, I think it's fantastic and the colours really work for the channel. (I quite like the giant)
24:30 - those aren't platforms, they're brothel creepers, surely?
Yeah, probably. Besides my shoe-based ignorance, I think they were conflated quite often at the time for this sort of lazy nostalgia. Big soles, popular in the 70s, must be platforms.
Just watching this again and wondering, when the "Giant" idents appeared was David "Jeans on" Dundas being paid £3.50 each time again? 🤔
Damn, if the likes of TSW or Border Television struggled paying for two channels worth of advertising, how did Channel TV cope?
MrChumley-Warner
Martin lambie nairn is responsible for the great spitting image.
5:46 Channel 4 2D Cell Animations? From What website?
Martin Lambie-Nairn's book "Brand Identity for Television with Knobs On". Out of print but you might find it second hand or on eBay.
@@applemask Lambie-Nairn's Brand identity for Television with knobs on?
First Bob
Aardman idents missing
When did Aardman do Channel 4 idents?
@@knshinn2 in 1996, just before the circle idents, in "Channel 4 On Air Identity" (timestamp 11:14)
really well made video. quite interesting for someone who didn't grow up during these times
Countdown, Brookside, Dispatches, The Comic Strip, The Tube, Right To Reply, Friday Night/Saturday Live, The Big Breakfast, Equinox, Cutting Edge, True Stories, Whose Line Is It Anyway, TFI Friday, The Crystal Maze, Father Ted, Derry Girls, Hollyoaks, Unreported World, Deal Or No Deal, Desmond’s, The IT Crowd, Peep Show, It’s A Sin, 15 to 1, Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush, This Is England, GBH, Absolutely, Vic Reeves’ Big Night Out, Gamesmaster, Drop The Dead Donkey, The Word, Time Team.
Happy 40th Channel 4
hoobs?
After Dark; Network 7; Shameless; so many to choose from!!
@@brucedanton3669 MinipNO
In Wales, we'd also get Brookside on S4C too. This was when S4C would transmit the shows from Channel 4 in English, as well as their own programming in Welsh.
Brilliant job as always, I loved the new additions to the basis of the original 2012 video. Out of sheer curiosity, do you think you’ll ever do a re-revision of ITV In The Face?
Only if ITV actually commission it.
@@BobtheFishProductions Hey, no problem at all!
Like I said, great job with the new version of 4Sight!
@@BobtheFishProductions that would be neat to see, but if it was actually commissioned by them i imagine that a lot of your criticisms would maybe be neutered. at least they'd likely have cleaner archive footage
@@BobtheFishProductionsthey will
You say that but most Channel 5 nostalgia shows seem to get most of their clips from TH-cam rather than forking out for the footage. 😉