Nationwide (1969)

Opening titles for a news and current affairs magazine programme which ran from 1969 to 1983. ‘Nationwide’ was the regional nationwide opt-out after the national early evening news bulletin. Julia Stone, under the influence of a recent trip to India, designed a lively animated mandala-style framework around the portrait vignettes of the key presenters. Unfortunately this decision became a bit of a liability as this film title sequence had to be re-shot every time there was a change of presenter, which was all too frequent. This is something that, with the benefit of today’s digital technology, would not be a problem at all of course. Programme captions in the pre-electronic era were mounted on cards and placed in front of a studio camera on the equivalent of a music stand. The captions for ‘Nationwide’ were printed black and white for economy reasons and coloured by hand using Magic Markers.

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