Arena - Radio Night (1993)

The opening title sequence for an 'Arena' special evening-long series of programmes on the theme of Radio. The model of the city, landscape and the iconic ‘Arena’ bottle were made by Alan Kemp. The model was filmed on 35mm in a studio using a motion control camera rig. Designer Pete Wane did the 4-cel animation cycle for the the radio signals - simple black radiating lines on white, scanned in post-production into the digital editor and reversed black to white. The lines were given a soft blur in the edit and were faded as they reached the visible perimeter of the signal reach. Finally, they were tilted into position over the bottle and the animation was dissolved in, just as the motion control movement was reaching its end position and the ‘Arena’ bottle began transmitting to the city and the world beyond. The sequence showed how versatile and adaptable the original ‘Message in a Bottle’ brand image could become.

• BBC Programme Index/Genome