Concept and creative process
Opening titles for a series in which Michael Parkinson asked a number of people in the music field about the development of the popular music scene. The designer created a strong pattern of condensed capitals with heavy drop shadows for the logo, but with the ‘O’s in the three words retained as perfect circles. Positive and negative Kodalith films of single and multiple patterns of the logo were made as artwork and played with back-lit under the rostrum camera to create strobe-like effects through the speed of the cutting. Having previously timed the music with a frame counter on a Steenbeck, marking the synch points with a wax pencil on clear film as it ran through the projection gate, the sequence could be planned precisely in terms of camera movement and edit points and shot entirely in one take in-camera without the need for subsequent editing.