In the recent past, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC TV) pointed to the possibilities of its medium with the tag, "There's more to television." But with a new slogan, "It begins with 1", and a new name, ABC1, the focus is now on personal possibility.

The 14-ident package, helmed by Sydney-based creative agency zspace depicts the personal stories of Australian citizens, from anonymous professionals to well-known personalities such as TV journalist Kerry O'Brien and comedian Andrew Denton. Their first-person reflections are complemented by an array of diverse animation styles that, depending on the story, playfully or pensively infuse each piece.

"There's a lot of ownership by the public of ABC," says zspace creative director Marcelle Lunam, who co-directed the spots with fellow CD Jean-Christophe Danoy. "It needed to be a concept that brought together the notion of community, but also highlighted how an individual can make a difference. We wanted different animators and composers to accumulate a diversity of looks [and] portray a diversity of personalities and interests."

The focus on individuals and community is so thorough that along with bringing local animators on board, the agency also brought in writers of note to pen the stories, some based on interviews with the real-life subjects. For example, playwright Stephen Sewell crafted the stories for "Teacher" and "Crime Writer", while Sydney-based, New Zealand-born writer/director Miro Bilbrough wrote "Architect" and "Midwife".

"It allowed us to be more artistic and creative," says Danoy. "We got fantastic people who are at the height of their fields."

Working with a tight budget and deadline - the team had a week to shoot all 14 idents with one hour allotted for each "personalities" shoot and four hours for the rest - plenty of pre-viz was necessary. Some animators were given direction as to the desired look of the piece, while for others the process was more free-flowing.

"In a traditional package, everything's got one style and is much more streamlined," says Danoy. "Here there were different ways of shooting and animation. No two idents looked the same."

Still, the team had to ensure that there were unifying elements. Lunam points to the idents' chiaroscuro aesthetic as a point of cohesion. Overall, she lauds the network's creative risk-taking.

"The broadcast climate in this country tends to be very conservative and people are understandably nervous about representing themselves in a fashion that might be considered left of field," she says. "This is a pretty brave thing for the ABC and for us to do."

Australian Broadcasting Corporation http://www.abc.net.au
zspace http://www.zspace.com.au