Alibi
The first TV channel I decided to research was Alibi, which specialises in UK and US TV dramas. They feature shows such as Castle. Rizzoli & Isles and many more thriller series.
Alibi is a channel that features many crime and law
programs, hence the name alibi. They specialise in showing engaging dramas and
really immerse you into the scene. They are a UK and US channel and are known
for thrilling idents and stings.
The first ident begins very mysteriously and you don’t
really know or understand what is going on, and as the first few seconds set in
the camera is moving upwards and the words look like they are falling, which is
a very strange effect on your eyes and as the viewer you still don’t really
understand the higher purpose of all this. Instantly you can hear sirens and
chatter on a police radio, which indicates some sort of criminal activity. The
words are picked wisely, and all of the words are words a witness would use as
an alibi or something to do with a crime. The word murder is used, and is
highlighted as bold, which draws your eyes to this out of the other less
important words. The first three words that I could make out very well were
“murder” and “gun or knife”, and this sets the scene for the channel and the
ident. Whole sentences are falling to the ground and as this carries on you
start to see the sentences form a shape. At around 12 seconds into the video
you can see what the shape is, and I think it was very clear in showing a body
outline that is drawn on murder scenes after the body is removed in murder
scenes. As the camera continues to move backwards, you start to see it a lot
clearer and the logo alibi starts to pour out and is made to look like blood.
Once this sequence is complete, the camera continues to move backwards to show
a crime scene investigation tape that the police usually put to stop the public
from contaminating the scene. As the camera is moving backwards to reveal the
tape, a woman whispers “alibi”, which is their main voice and audio for their
channel. I think this is a very dramatic ident and really shows the kind of
programs the viewers will be watching. I think it really identifies their genre
of TV and lets everyone know what kind of channel this is. They also show that
they are not all about action in TV, and more into the story of the program, as
this ident is quite slow and not very fast-paced. There also isn’t a lot going
on, which adds to drama and also helps the scene look natural.
The next scene begins with the instant sound of clicking and
ticking, and you can see what the object is very clearly and quickly within the
first second of the ident, which helps the viewer understand the ident. The
object is a safe locking mechanism, and is quite famous in the TV world for
being used as the main way to get into the safe dramatically and with a lot of
tension. All the cogs are turning in this ident, and they all have words on
them. A few words I picked up were “numbers”, “click” and “proved my
innocence”. The last one is supposed to give the viewers a sense of what is
going on and a very small glimpse of a deeper backstory to just a safe being
opened. The first 10 seconds of the ident are all camera shots that are zoomed
into the cogs moving, which adds a lot of drama to the scene. After the 10
seconds, the ident cuts to a camera shot that is slowly moving backwards, and
has a great revealing shot of the entire lock mechanism. A few seconds later
you hear a bang, but not like something had fallen, but instead like the safe
had opened. Following this main sound, there were small audios that followed,
to give the impression that the safe had been opened. After the sounds have
finished, the channel’s main audio file of the woman whispering “alibi” comes
in, and finishes the scene.
Both of these idents describe the channel very well, as they
keep a theme of crime and mystery in their idents, and don’t give too much
away. I also like how they pick certain sound effects and dark music themes to
add to the tension of their idents. The first ident isn’t too clear in the
beginning, and leaves you wondering what is going on, which was a good idea for
that particular ident, seeing as how when you finally see what is going on you
feel like it was part of a story, and I like this element of mystery. The first
one is also dark, and is implying death when it all comes together, which makes
the viewer aware of the channel they are watching and is showing them what kind
of content will be featured on this channel. I feel this differs from the
second one greatly, as the second one is not showing or implying any people are
involved, and merely shows a safe being unlocked, which is opened at the end,
according to the audio. Whereas murder in TV is seen as horrible and gruesome,
theft is usually portrayed at almost the opposite. It is seen as thrill seeking
and this is the reason why movies like the Italian Job and Ocean’s Eleven are
so successful. In almost all heist movies, a safe is always used, which makes
this ident less criminal and more adventurous, at least, in my opinion. This
gives an entirely different theme and is nowhere near as dark as the first one.
As the first one is at first hard to understand, the second one can be
understood within a few seconds once you understand what the cogs are for. The
ticking on the safe also aids the ident.
The target audience for this channel is adults, as there are
mature themes in programs on this channel that would not be suitable for
children or young teens. This is why the idents aren’t filled with music or aren’t
that colourful; because they are trying to convey the same messages in the
programs they feature. The first ident could be seen as disturbing for someone
that has recently witnessed a murder, as it could bring back memories, whereas
the second one is almost harmless, as it shows a safe being opened and does not
really imply something is being stolen.
Alibi’s colour scheme is not very bright, as these ties in
with their whole channel feel and look. Their logo employs a very popular
colour scheme, red, black and white. The circle is red, the text is white and
the dot on the lowercase ‘I’ is black. This usually stands out against
anything, which is why their colour scheme is usually dark or just doesn't have
that much colour.
The movement in these idents are varied, as there are two
very different examples of the channel. The first ident is very slow and the
camera moves around in an almost slow-motion way, and this adds tension to the
ident, especially as it is a very mysterious and initially confusing ident. The
second one uses movement very well as the camera goes up close to the cogs of
the locking mechanism of the safe to make the scene really dramatic. This scene
is also tense, and moves quite slowly, yet cuts to a number of shots, unlike
the last one, which is why this ident seems less serious and more in place with
the viewer. Because the first ident did not have any cuts to different camera
shots, it was very fluid and kept the overall movement of the ident smooth and clean.
Alibi’s TV idents centre mainly around typography, as it
their strong point and makes their channel so much more interesting. If they
were a channel that featured fast paced action shows, they would probably have
thrilling explosive TV idents that would be very fast and would not really say
anything about the actual story of the show. Alibi features shows that are very
heavy on the story, which is why their TV idents mainly present phrases and pieces
of text that would usually appear in serious gripping crime dramas. Typography is the first thing you seen on
their idents, as they would rather the viewer see a story through words rather
a picture or video. The first ident has pieces of text strung together to form
a shape, which is innovative and has a lot of meaning. The second ident has
words on the cogs and this too has more depth and each word was chosen
carefully to have a specific meaning, which adds to the dark, mysterious theme
of the channel.
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