Concept and creative process
Producer Choice was the internal market introduced by John Birt during his tenure of the post of BBC Director General from 1992-2000. Following the policy’s introduction, producers were free to spend their budgets inside or outside of the BBC on any service they required to make their programmes. As a result, BBC Children’s Programmes in London commissioned the broadcast design team at BBC Resources at New Broadcasting House in Manchester to produce an identity, including logo, onscreen design system and title sequence, for the surreal children’s comedy programme ‘Wiz Bang’ The client at BBC Children’s was director John F.D. Northover. BBC Resources designers Ian Bate and Gregory Millar were supported by senior designer Mark Allen. The title sequence for the show combined a mix of unrelated illustrated characters who interacted in a fun way on a graphic theatre stage, before a cloaked figure eventually released a comedy bomb to reveal the ‘Wiz Bang’ logo. The strong visual edit was complemented by the memorably zany and quirky ‘Wiz Bang’ theme tune. The programme sketches were performed by a team of two female and two male actors. Many of their scenes, which were modern takes on classic fairytales, were filmed in front of chroma green screen. This footage was later composited against graphic backgrounds inspired by Roy Lichtenstein's pop art comic strip style. The sequence was edited and post-produced on Quantel Harry at 4:2:2 in Manchester.