Concept and creative process
Titles for ‘Men...’ a series of 5 documentaries which opened up the debate about what was happening to men in the mid-1980s. The brief was to create a title sequence that epitomised the clichéd idea of what a man really was. I decided to shoot a variety of cameos that could be cut together, ending on a logo which was reminiscent of the 'S' Superman logo. Each sequence was planned out and required different props and sometimes artwork. For instance the first sequence involved a shoot using Ray Ogden (another designer), with a tattoo painted onto his muscular arm by illustrator Fen Field. The shot involving a gun had to be controlled on the shoot by a BBC Armourer with whom I had selected the weapon from the Armoury in the Scenery Block at Television Centre. The Armoury was a massive room behind a locked steel door, inside which there were guns of every era, as well as swords, knives, and every other kind of hand weapon. All the other sequences were performed by Brian Tolton, whom I often used as a hand artist. The sequence was shot on film and edited on a Steenbeck before being sent to the film laboratory for a negative cut and graded transmission print. The music was written to the rough cut. The sequence was lit and filmed by lighting cameraman Doug Adamson at Stewart Hardy Films. The title logo was hand drawn by Fen Field and printed onto a T-shirt.
Concept, Design & Live Action Direction - Liz Friedman.