2008-2009 Primetime Main Title Emmy Noms

After producing a few dozen main titles myself through the years, I can appreciate the work and dedication that goes into the craft. Hats off to the 2009 nominees, announced earlier today in Hollywood by Chandra Wilson and Jim Parsons. Winners will be announced September 20, 2009- televised by CBS from the Nokia Theatre LA Live.

Lie To Me • FOX • Twentieth Century Fox Television in association with Imagine Entertainment Robert Bradley, Title Designer Thomas Cobb, Title Designer

Storymakers • AMC • Leroy & Morton Productions James Spindler, Creative Director Mike Wasilewski, Designer Ahmet Ahmet, Art Director Grant Lau, Art Director

Taking Chance • HBO • Motion Picture Corporation of American and Civil Dawn Pictures in association with HBO Films Michael Riley, Title Designer Dru Nget, Title Designer Dan Meehan, Animator Bob Swensen, Main Title Producer

True Blood • HBO • Your Face Goes Here Entertainment in association with HBO Entertainment Rama Allen, Designer Shawn Fedorchuk, Editor Matthew Mulder, Creative Director Morgan Henry, Main Title Producer Camm Rowland, Designer Ryan Gagnier, Designer

United States Of Tara • Showtime • Showtime presents in association with Dreamworks Television Jamie Caliri, Director/Director of Photography/Editor/Main Digital Compositor Dave Finkel, Creator Brett Baer, Creator

MTV Refreshes Brand Across International Channels

MTV has launched an ambitious rebrand across 64 of their international channels. The brand assignment included on-air, web, and print elements for an international audience of 524 million viewers.

The goal: cement the channel’s reputation as a powerhouse of youth-oriented programming and creative output. The aim is to continue and enhance the innovative spirit of MTV’s 27 year legacy, and to establish a coherent brand language across 160 different countries spanning 31 languages including Japanese, Russian and Chinese.

This resulted in the reinvention of the onscreen information graphics with a time-line based system to establish ‘Where you are in MTV time’. The MTV logo remains in a fixed top left position onscreen at all times and acts as an anchor for the new system of information display – with the title of the current program always appearing immediately to the right of the logo in a blue progress-bar so viewers can gauge where they are in the current program. “Now the logo is sacred,” says Roberto Bagatti, Vice President of Creative for MTV Networks International.

The eight secondary typefaces were selected for their expressive or emotion-inducing nature – and to add an element of fun to the onscreen identity of the channel. The first six new channel idents were based on an idea of “pop x 1000%” which was, says Bagatti, “the rebrand project’s title and mantra.”

The assignment was led UK-based Universal Everything in collaboration with Roberto Bagatti, Creative Director of MTV World Design Studio Milano and Dylan Griffith – Creative Director of MTV North.

First Look- Syfy “House of Imagination”

Sorry for lack of postings in the last week. I have been flying between London, New York, and LA, and with it some not so fun travel fatigue. Nothing that some new work won’t cure. Celebrating Syfy’s unique spin on imagination, the 2 minute film features stars from Warehouse 13, Eureka, Ghost Hunters, Caprica, Sanctuary, Stargate Universe, Destination Truth and ECW.

Michael Engleman, Vice President, Creative, Syfy, explains, “Coming off the most successful year in our 16-year history, we wanted to create a brand film that both celebrates the genre and also feels human, relatable, and wildly creative, highlighting the wide array of casts and character who inhabit Syfy’s ever broadening programming landscape. Through this unique creative collaboration, we’re honoring and embracing a powerful global brand with deep roots in the popular culture.”

Manhattan will be the hub of Syfy rebranding events. In addition to year-long free WyFy (yes, WyFy) at Union Square and Times Square, the network will construct an interactive Imagination Park at the north plaza of Rockefeller Center that will feature program-centric set pieces from July 7-12. The network also has signed on as a presenting sponsor of the Museum of Modern Art’s Tim Burton retrospective in November.

Prepare for the full launch of the new Syfy next week July 7.

Make sure to check back for new work, or simply click here for easy updates delivered straight to your email box.

UKTV Completes Portfolio Rebrand with Launch of “Good Food”

Today: Over the last 18 months, UKTV and long-standing creative partner Red Bee Media have overhauled the broadcaster’s entire portfolio of ten channels, in what is the largest and most ambitious branding exercise in British broadcasting history. The final channel rebrand, Good Food (formerly UKTV Food) relaunches today, June 22.

UKTV’s Marketing and Communications Director, Tom Lucas, and Lifestyle Marketing Manager, Denise Wild, tasked Red Bee with encouraging a more diverse audience to the channel by making it feel more entertaining and less exclusively for ‘foodies’. The result? A fresh and lively rebrand that captures viewers’ universal love of food.

UKTV’s Denise Wild explains, “Developing Good Food brand identity has been a very different experience from our nine preceding rebrands.  We had to align our new multiplatform brand with the established Good Food brand with a view to creating one food superbrand, while also ensuring our TV proposition is distinct and appealing to our current UKTV Food viewers.”

“To do this, we’ve utilised the Good Food type face within our logo but altered its alignment and positioning, and also used the recognised colour palette to create an on screen presentation kit that is both fresh and modern in feel.”

Red Bee Media developed an initial package of four idents, titled “Stir Fry”, “Wild Food”, “Dinner Party” and “Sunday Roast” that capture the energy, the fun and the social aspect that comes across when eating and preparing food.

Alongside the idents, the company also produced a full OSP kit – including all navigation menus, blips, which are momentary on-screen interruptions and break bumpers for the channel – and a launch promo (10 sec, 30 sec and 60 sec versions) that is currently playing across all 17 UKTV and Virgin TV channels.  An off-air marketing campaign is planned for Q4 2009 to support a raft of new commissions and acquisitions that will premiere from September.

Andy Bryant, Director, Creative at Red Bee Media comments, “Changing the face of UKTV has demonstrated how a distinctive and relevant brand identity is one of the more potent and effective options available to broadcasters to achieve audience and revenue growth. Our work with UKTV has already delivered real financial payback in a fiercely competitive television market place.”

Bravo 2009 Rebrand- Goodbye “Watch What Happens”

Update (1) June 24: Updated frames will be posted when available

Had another preview of the ambitious new Bravo (US) rebrand last week at Promax/BDA in NYC. On Tuesday 23 June, the tagline “Watch What Happens” will be replaced with “By Bravo”. The cabler is refreshing its brand with a complete on-air redesign. In an attempt to combat the erosion of brand association purely through its on-air channel identity, the new Bravo (with its pop inspired redesign), is focused on harnessing the power of its loyal viewership across every touch-point.

“The goal of this redesign is to give Bravo a fresh look that illustrates where our brand is going while staying true to our roots,” said Bravo Media’s GM and EVP Frances Berwick. “We’re reflecting the strength of our brand and communicating this to our audience by transforming the signature talk bubble logo from a television message, ‘Watch What Happens,’ to a position of curation and ownership, ‘By Bravo.’ “

The “By Bravo” tagline will be used to brand the different genres of primetime series: “Food by Bravo” for “Top Chef,” “Competition by Bravo” for “The Fashion Show,” “Drama by Bravo” for “The Real Housewives” franchise, and “Funny by Bravo” for “Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List.”

The new look will be introduced by the launch of the new docu-series “NYC Prep”, which will take the TV merchandising/partnership model to a whole new level. For example, Bravo will be launching co-branded handbags with Kooba featured in “NYC Prep”. The bags, labeled “Kooba Exclusively for Fashion by Bravo,” will be sold for $595 at Bravotv.com and Kooba.com , with other partnerships following in the fashion and food categories.

Does this mean I’ll finally get some Real Housewives Swarovski Martini glasses? Oh yes please.

The rebrand launches Tuesday, June 23.

For a sneak peek at the redesign, click here.

Google Chrome- Interactive Reaction

A few months ago- while last in LA, I had a chance to catch up with some old friends at IF. After working 10+ years in the Hollywood area, who knew I’d miss the area so much?

Peter Frankfurt and Chip Houghton were kind enough to let me preview their work for the Google Shorts Project, a short film answering the question: “What would the internet look like if represented as a 3-Dimensional object?”

Observed as if in a museum, the object comes to life revealing the ins and outs of what Google Chrome has to offer. Directed by Brian Mah, it is titled “Interactive Reaction”. Special thanks go to Danixa-

MTV to Rebrand MTV One, MTV One+

MTV is in the midst of a major rebranding initiative. MTV One will become MTV and MTV One+ will change to MTV+. The new branding will take effect on July 1 and the sources confirm that all other aspects regarding the channels will “remain as at present”.

MTV UK was changed to MTV One back in July 2007, while MTV2 became MTV Two to fit with the overall branding campaign. It’s unclear as yet whether MTV Two will also now change its identity under the new arrangements.

Virgin1 Launches Rebrand

At 9pm on Tuesday, Virgin1 officially unveiled its new ambitious new rebrand. We were welcomed by by none other than Virgin’s own Richard Branson and Red- the cute, crafty, and impish new face of the network. The character was recruited to embody the personality and values of the Virgin1 brand. You can watch a quick montage of the rebrand by clicking here. In his new role, Red will take charge of all programme navigation and credit rolls by adding his own commentary and onscreen activity.

His interactions will be tailored to the programmes onscreen as he gives his own cheeky slant on the Virgin1 brand so ensuring the movement between programmes is as entertaining as the shows themselves. Virgin1 has taken the concept of an on screen character to encapsulate its brand further than any other broadcaster by employing Red who will be bringing those brand characteristics to life both on and off screen.

The comprehensive on-air branding assignment was led by Virgin Media Television brand & marketing director Jeff Dodds (the former Honda marketing executive who joined the broadcaster earlier this year) in conjunction with channel branding creative agency Red Bee Media.

Turner Classic Movies Refreshes Brand

Turner Classic Movies (TCM) has unveiled a fresh, more distinctive branded look and new marketing campaign to mark its 10th anniversary. Designed to engage a younger audience, the move follows the acquisition of new film titles from leading studios including Warner Bros, Paramount and Universal. A new series of idents focuses on viewers’ reactions to film, capturing the emotive experience of great cinema, while a separate set of idents celebrates famous film quotes.

A digital marketing campaign, entitled ‘Capture Your Classic’ will invite viewers to upload recreations of five famous films scenes onto the channel’s website.  The user generated content judged to be the best will then be seeded out across a range of social networking sites. The celebrity fronted campaign will launch with two famous faces recreating an iconic film scene, alongside many hundreds of members of the public, taking place on July 12 at a central London location.

Vice President of Marketing and Communications, Barnaby Dawe, said,  “This is all about injecting some fun and exuberance into the TCM brand that will appeal to the 35+ audience, using an integration of digital and experiential marketing.”

In other TCM news, the German version of TCM is to be renamed TNT Film on the 4th July, 2009. The rebrand will include a newly designed logo which aim is to attract a younger and more forward thinking audience.

London to Rebrand; Reviewing Agencies & Consultants

Normally I try to stick to media & entertainment news, but when the city of London decides to rebrand, you certainly have to take notice. Yesterday, London Mayor Boris Johnson officially launched the project that was heavily rumored for months. The brand assignment includes the creation of a new logo and comprehensive brand identity for the world city.

Update 9 June: Approximately £2M will be spent on the brand assignment.

Update 8 June: Advertising Agencies will be under instructions to play down the role of the City’s bankers, tainted by the recession.

A motion graphics component is part of the initial brief. City Hall is now in the process of approaching agencies and consultants about creating the brand. The mayor’s office expects to launch the brand campaign in the New Year.

I’ve been told that once launched, a seperate assignment will be used to promote the new London brand throughout the world, in early anticipation of the 2012 Olympics. It will take a similar form to London House, the venue setup during the Beijing Olympics in 2008 to promote overseas investment and visitors to the capital. It should be noted that City Hall’s economic development arm, the London Development Agency, ran London House