A couple of minor criticisms for the opener of the Victoria 7pm bulletin:
I will give it another few days to grow on me but my initial reaction having watched throughout the day is that the whole thing is a bit of a miss.
The opener is absolutely terrible. The vertical swipes are at odds with our horizontal plane of vision which makes it nigh on impossible to see what the hell is going on. It’s all random lines, flashes of blue and black and photos that leave you wondering what the hell you just saw because it all flew past in a fraction of a second. It just feels like a change for change’s sake, completely pointless and utterly bewildering to be honest.
The date has no place being in any opener except News Breakfast. The logo looks even more awkward in use than it did when we first saw it last year. The sets don’t work. The titles on the backdrops are really under-cooked.
I do like the fluid motions and transitions in the headlines, graphics etc. The weather graphics are also a huge, huge improvement over the powerpoint slides they were using before. It will be interesting to see whether the overnight weather graphics have evolved as well.
I don’t want to rant and rave for too long so will finish by saying that it feels like they have lost the essence of what the news channel is supposed to be about. The graphics are fine for the stuff we see on ABC TV (ie News Breakfast, a few updates and then the 7pm bulletins) but none of them portray the global reach, trusted journalism, breaking coverage, deep analysis that is supposed to set the news channel apart. It feels dumbed down to me.
Maybe it will grow on me. I was never a huge fan of the old package either, it also felt under-cooked for what it was being used for.
SA closer featured the old theme music tonight. But I like the use of news of the day imag s in the Opener. Gives a brief and fresh snapshot of th days news.
Is ABC News Victoria no longer using it’s Melbourne backdrop loop? Nonetheless, I agree that there needs to be more done to present this as a local/state broadcast like with the imagery used in the titles as previously suggested.
I’m not sure about everyone else but when I turn on the TV to watch ABC News at 7pm with Juanita or Jeremy, I for one personally like to feel that I’m actually watching a broadcast specially for Sydney or New South Wales rather than a national bulletin. Things like backdrops and imagery help to give a news broadcast more of a local feel!
I should clarify that I was talking about the opener, not the whole bulletin. My bad.
Yeah I believe the package would look 100 times better if it were in HD. looks horrid in SD.
It’s used for items that don’t have their own back screen graphics.
That’s what I felt when I watched tonight’s edition of ABC News NSW. The only local story was the very last one before the weather, which was kind of a fluff piece about rat petting (I kid you not!) at the Royal Easter Show.
In fact, whenever I watched ABC News Canberra from time to time via iview, it was more often than not felt more like a national bulletin rather than a local bulletin.
I actually like this style. Based on tonight’s videos above, the headlines on NSW bulletin are too short, while the headlines on the QLD bulletin are something in between.
This was last night’s ABC News Victoria opener. The headlines have been around this size ever since they were introduced in the 2005 relaunch.
If anything I like the length of the new headlines. Immediately when I saw that video then and they cut to the studio, I felt like I was watching a local bulletin with the SouthWharf bridge showing.
They need the lightwell background or Victorian images to be used in the new graphics.
ABC News Western Australia closed a bit abruptly and we didn’t get a proper closer, it was just the shot of the set and it randomly ended. I think there was closer music, but it cut off before it could finish.
And WHY in those QLD weather graphics have they got Gympie south of the Sunshine Coast and west of Redcliffe?
Mixed views really - I like that the state bulletins all seem to do the first story and then the first set of titles, and I like the new music. The timing of the intro sequence in the Victorian bulletin is perfect - while in Queensland it just looks blah.
The new graphics are acceptable, but worse than the old ones - I like how they animate, but they are dull. These look primed for ABC screwing with them in 4 months time and making a bunch of in house changes. If they do, more white on black, less black on white. Would have liked some local images in the openers though - especially bad if they don’t always cut to that opening screen with the bulletin name on it and a local shot.
I like the headlines of the Victorian bulletin as well - the longer ones mean you get meaning from them - not just some words that mean nothing without the context of the voice over. A lot of people might be able to see a screen and not be getting the sound - it’s good to have graphical elements that let people get some more detail from it before deciding to actually pay attention to the TV.
Just been catching up on some of the new ABC News graphics. I like the opening titles and subtle changes to the news theme. However I thought they were going to be reinstating the Majestic Fanfare? Did I miss something there?
Final judgment: alright.
Kind of boring and unadventurous. In some ways a nice evolution of the old sliders, in other ways a missed opportunity.
Yeah I agree with you, just feels like they had the right idea - but the execution was done poorly
The last scene on this video sums the relaunch up: https://youtu.be/80-LM4o2NxQ
Start with the main problem first. The weather graphics. Horrendous.
Barely able to be read. Obviously constructed by a moron, as no one else would think to make visual information like that in TV graphics so minuscule. These require an IMMEDIATE update.
The finance graphics. Cleaner, but at the expense of intelligence. The currencies are harder to read for example, with descriptive rather than visual indicators.
The polished sets do not match the look of these graphics at all.
As for the 7pm theme - yeah, I don’t mind it - I think I like it only because it is one thing which reminds me of the previous package. It’s a downgrade in any case - less authoritative, and sounds confused. The 2010/11 theme was much stronger - the mid-break bumper for example was quite weak.
For the state 7pm bulletins, I would have liked the local imagery retained in the openers. It gives the bulletin a sense of place. If not, I don’t mind the incorporation of imagery from the day’s headlines.
However, I hate the generic imagery that we got in WA tonight for some reason, in contrast to what I see here from Victoria. As typical with many international left-wing TV organisations, such as ITV in the UK, these contain patronising, patriarchal images of children from minority ethnicities. Nothing to do with news at all, or the location of the bulletin. Corny, cliche, dated.
As for the date incorporated in the openers, I like the little twist. We shouldn’t use unneeded criticism of this extra bonus however to bully people into thinking other very legitimate criticisms of this package are not warranted.
I don’t watch ABC Breakfast but from what I see here - an absolute mess.
Graphics are used to convey information. When they don’t convey information, they’re a big fat fail. No matter how swish or updated you think they look.
Well of course they do, lol. No one is going to be ranting and raving in front of the Sydney ABC studios in 10 months time about graphics on the news.
Oh how I hate this sort of cliche, Aussie tin-ear to criticism attitude.