It’s believed to be impossible to translate the ancient Welsh word hiraeth. Outsiders can only fumble loosely to understand its meaning: the almost umbilical-like connection that the Welsh have for their country. As the first channel to specifically target a Welsh-speaking audience, S4/C tapped into that deep connection for its 2007 rebrand.

While the tradition of hiraeth influenced the creative concept of its first set of idents, developed by design studio Proud Creative, London with Universal Everything and HLA’s Simon Ratigan, the second set aimed to turn the traditional into the groundbreaking.

After 12 months of research and development, creative studio Minivegas created custom software that enabled the real-time rendering of live-action elements. The studio applied this software to Proud Creative’s brief – breathe new life into everyday spaces that the people of Wales thought they knew – to create a series of idents that reacted to the continuity announcer’s voice in real-time. Variations in the announcer’s delivery, intonation and pitch meant that the viewer would never see the same execution twice. BBC Four tried the technique in 2002 using graphics, but what makes these idents astounding is the uncharted waters of dynamically manipulating live action.

"One of the challenges of live action as opposed to graphics is moving things believably," says Minivegas’ Luc Schurgers. "You only have a small amount of time to react to a spike in the input. Graphically, you’d be free to do anything, but the real world imposes many constraints – how fast things can move, [and] how they move." Q

www.s4c.co.uk

www.minivegas.co.uk

www.proudcreative.com