S4C Ysgolion (Schools) 1987 – 1993 Branding

Sianel Pedwar Cymru – Channel Four Wales. S4C is the Welsh ‘Channel 4’ and were the only channel to produce a local equivilent of the schools programmes. Responsible for this service was Aled Wyn Phillips – Presentation Controller at S4C. He said: “The production criteria for the imagery was to remain within the Channel 4/ITV brand wherever possible (imagery/music etc…), but to clearly show that the service was broadcast on S4C.” Aled was involved in the commissioning of the animation. Two variants of the animation were created for the 14th September 1987 launch. The first was the main “ITV” sequence and the second was the “S4C” sequence. The first was for English language networked programmes and the second was used for S4C opt-outs of network and into local programming. Images 1 – 4: ITV Schools 3D Holding Device and clock with S4C logo bottom right of caption bar during English language Channel Four networked programmes.

S4C made modifications to the master ITV Schools on Channel 4 “3D Holding Device” to remove the reference to Channel 4 (the “4” logo). Due to the fact that the “4” logo was part of the 3D scene, S4C used the ITV Schools on Channel 4 animation but masked the “4” logo. To achieve this they adopted to overlay the S4C logo. Aled Wyn Phillips – Presentation Controller, comments: “We took the 1 inch masters (Sony ‘C’ format) to a Cardiff based facility company called Stylus. They adapted the work and produced new S4C versions.” Stylus did not create the animations. They did what is known in the industry as Rotoscoping – computer frame painting – to modify the Channel 4 version. Bare in mind that this would have been a fairly expensive process due to the memory requirements of a PAL video frame versus actual system memory! The rotoscoping was done for time/cost. Rendering a seperate version with the S4C logo within the caption bar was time expensive. Images 1 – 4: ITV Schools on Channel 4 original “rotomotion” animation The history around the equipment that was used to create these animations is very interesting. Three systems were used encompassing Unix, Silicon Graphics and Digital Equipment Corp. (latterly digested by Compaq Computers). It’s amazing to think that this was one of the most advanced animations on British TV at the time. When you consider how powerful computers are now compared to when these animations were made makes one’s mind wonder. You can read more about it in our ITV Schools on Channel 4 section.