In 1987, HTV, introduced a new presentation package, which retained the 'aerial' logo design, but rendered it in 3D. At the centre of the redesign was a new ident, which used the latest in 3D computer animation techniques and was accompanied by a synth-based jingle. This replaced the original 'aerial' ident, which was a classic, but after roughly 17 years service, was starting to look quite dated...
The original HTV 'aerial' ident. Uploaded by YouTube user "BelfastGav"
The new ident had 3 versions, just like the previous design.
- One with "HTV WALES" branding
- One with "HTV WEST" branding
- And one with just "HTV", for any occasion when both HTV regions shared their output.
HTV Wales' version of the 1987 ident, uploaded by YouTube user "jkmac1973".
As you can probably guess, the only difference with each version are the words
(or lack of) that fly in to join the logo at the end.
At the end of the day, it's quite a nice ident, even if the music isn't as good as the its predecessor. The only thing I have against this ident, is one small flaw in the animation. Actually, it's quite a big flaw. Did you spot it? Watch the video again, then read on...
See it yet? If you haven't, then look closer as the blocks fly across the screen and the camera pans to follow them....
Keep an eye on the large vertical block that's furthest away from the screen. As they all fly past, the far one is obscured...
As they reach the other side, the far block has disappeared. There's no reason to explain why, other than it was a genuine mistake...
The remaining blocks then start to settle onto the blue background. The two large vertical blocks forming the second vertical part of the 'H' and the vertical part of the 'T'. The block that disappeared was supposed to form the first vertical part of the 'H'...
Then, two new vertical blocks fly in from the left and right. The one on the left is the replacement for the block that disappeared and the one on the right is for the outer part of the 'V', which we didn't see at all until now, as we didn't even see it emerge from the sky/mirror portal-type thing!
So, when you look at it, the whole form-up is a complete mess. It's beyond me how this was allowed to happen, as such things are supposed to be planned out in the storyboard process, before anyone goes near a computer. I've no idea if anyone in Presentation at HTV realised the errors before it made it to air, but chances are that even if they had, not only would it cost too much to have it made again, the flawed one couldn't be left unused for reasons of cost, also.
From what I can work out, this ident was in use for around 2 years, possibly less than that, as HTV adopted the ITV generic branding upon its launch in 1989 and the flying blocks disappeared. Perhaps they just took the easy option and got rid of it as soon as they could.
I've not been able to find any evidence of viewers jamming the HTV switchboards with furious calls about the ident, so chances are, nobody at home had spotted what was wrong.
Apart from anyone who had taped it and played it in slow motion endless times.
Basically, anyone as geeky as me.
Yeah.
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