content by www.monkeon.co.uk |
In 1986, at a cost approaching £7 million pounds, ITV commissioned
acclaimed animator Ro Bollensberg to create tiny animations which to
broadcast at the top left of the screen to signify the approaching
adverts, replacing the existing black and white scrolling bar,
which had been known to cause fits in epileptic staff
whose role it was to cut to the commercial break when it appeared -
and who had been concentrating too hard on the job.
In total, Ro completed 116867 animations before his death - often working on them merely minutes before their broadcast. Each animation was created by first painting it's individual frames using the tip of a needle and a microscope. Each frame was only 0.009cm wide. These frames were then put together and scaled up in size for broadcast, hence their blocky appearance. After two years of making these animations, the sheer pressure of the job led to Ro claiming that he had lost all the colour from his sleep and could only dream in black and white. Out of desperation, on the 16th November 1988, Ro had a cup of warm paint as his bedtime drink in the hope that against all odds it would cure this problem. His long johned body was found the next day. He had drowned in a pile of technicolor sick. Curiously, the pattern it made on his carpet was almost the exactly the same as his first ever painting (Lillian the Labrador at age 6), only without the haunting eyes that focussed said work. Sadly, due to being broadcast during low quality series such as 'The Upper Hand', many of these animations were never captured by anyone on video - and whereas the shows themselves still exist, the animations have been lost forever. Also from Ro Bollensbeg:
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"Sports Day"
"Boo Yah Tribe"
"Tony Parsons"
"Grudge"
"Static Wow"
"Traffic Life"
"God?"
"Army"
"Scientolotree"
"Plagerism"