Last night, Twitter reminded me of the amazing title sequence for Smith And Jones, as the duo moved from BBC Two to BBC One. If you’ve not seen it, it looked like this.
It’s still excellent.
It was shot on 35mm film over two days, using motion control cameras, and was conceived by Jump Design as a play on the new 2s that were appearing over on the other channel.
Here’s a great little oral history of it all.
Jump Design was born out of the commercial design department of ITN, when Talkback approached them to make the titles for The Day Today. This is was a savvy choice, and it lead to this beauty.
Those titles, combined with that music, set up the show perfectly.
They went on to make the titles for Knowing Me, Knowing You … with Alan Partridge, before being asked to create the Smith And Jones one. They went on to do Brass Eye.
As well as So Graham Norton, and it’s succesive incarnations.
As well as this one for Absolutely Fabulous (and ones for previous series).
Then there’s this wonderfully evocative one for Reggie Perrin.
Not forgetting others for Big Train, QI, The One Show, Saturday Night Takeaway, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, and so many more. They even reunited with Armando Iannucci for HBO’s Veep.
