Channel One (Russia)

Credits

Descriptions by
KosMir

Captures by
KosMir

Video captures courtesy of
Эдуард Юргенсон, OxiExtras, Peter Forster, KTV - Заставки and TheCerSan

Background

Channel One (known inside Russia as: Первый канал/Perviy Kanal (First Channel)) is the main Russian TV channel that was launched on April 1st, 1995 as ORT (stands for: Obshestvennoe Rossiyskoe Televidenie; Cyrillic: Общественное российское телевидение; literally: Public Russian Television), replacing Channel 1 Ostankino. On September 2nd, 2002, the TV channel renamed itself to its current name - Channel One.

1st ID (April 1-September 30, 1995)

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  The beginning of the Still-life ident

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  The beginning of the Countdown ident

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  The beginning of the Music Hour ident

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  The finished product of the Still-life ident

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  The finished product of the Countdown ident

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  The finished product of the Music Hour ident

Visuals:

• Still-life: Over a still shot of a B&W static filmed off a TV is a horizontal bar in the middle of the screen, containing a table covered with a yellow tablecloth, over a golden curtain background in the darkness; on the table, there are antique objects symbolizing the primacy (gramophone, KVN-49 TV, a book, an old-school globe, etc.). Several small lights illuminate the objects to make them more visible as a one light slowly turns on, making them fully visible. Once a bar slightly zooms out, preparing to rotate 90° to the left, the footage inside a bar begins to swirl and gains a sepia tint. The shot of a TV static begins to move at fast pace for half a second before it cuts to a dark orange-tinted footage of moving clouds over a sky, with twelve transparent triangles (arranged like a clock) sliding from each corner they were located, while a bar slowes down after moving faster. As the bar becomes slightly wet-textured, the background cuts to the same moving shot of a TV static for a split second, causing a bar to become plain red and move faster, then the background cuts to a dark green-tinted footage of the same cloudy sky with a thin transparent ring and two transparent triangle shapes located on the top-center and bottom-center corners of a ring. During the part with a dark green-tinted footage of the same cloudy sky, a bar is now plain blue and slowed down once again. The background cuts to the same footage of a TV static once again for a split second before it cuts to a blue-tinted footage of the same cloudy sky as the bar finally finished rotating 90° and became white; a ring of the spaced-out text "ОБЩЕСТВЕННОЕ РОССИЙСКОЕ ТЕЛЕВИДЕНИЕ" in white is seen surrounding a bar.
• Countdown: Over the same still shot of a TV static is a metallic channel switch knob in the center of the screen, which looks similar to the ORT logo of the time. Suddenly, the "channel swithcing" happens: a channel switch knob turns to the left as the shot of a TV static moves for a brief second before it cuts to a purple-tinted footage of the same moving clouds from the Still-life ident, with a transparent white number "6" with stencil lines. After a second, it cuts to the same shot of a TV static with a channel switch knob and the same thing happens; a color tint of a footage of moving clouds changes after each channel switch in the "rainbow" order (5th channel - red, 4th channel - orange, 3rd channel - yellow, 2nd channel - green, and the 1st channel - blue), and a number counts down after each channel switch. When the channel switch knob reached the first channel, the shot with a channel switch knob fades to a blue-tinted footage of moving clouds, where a thin vertical bar containing a TV static zooms in the center of the screen, and becomes thicker. Then, the bar becomes white and the same ring of the TV channel name from the Still-life ident appears letter-by-letter, as two horizontal bars in the first and third (transparent) colors of a Russian flag form from the upper-left and bottom-right corners, making a transparent Russian flag; and the footage of moving clouds slows down.
• Music Hour on ORT: Pretty much the same concept as the Still-life ident, but the background consists of several tilted musical notations over a white background, and a bar contains several musical instruments (piano, three violins, harp, etc.) over a royal blue curtain background. When a bar begins to rotate, a footage inside a bar swirls and simply fades to white, and the background begins to move a la stop-motion. A bar stops at a tilted angle as the music builds up to a rock theme, then continues to rotate before it stops once again, and finally finishes rotating. The background remained on-screen while a bar was rotating, before its cuts to the same blue-tinted footage of moving clouds from two idents above. Inside a bar, the same moving musical notations appear; a ring of thirdy three musical notes in white appear one-by-one, surrounding a bar as it zooms out a bit. The musical notations fade out inside a bar to white as musical notes fade to the TV channel name in the same style as two idents above.

Technique: A mix of 2D computer animation and live-action, done by Yuri Grymov.

Audio:

• Still-life: A synth bell news-like tune accompanied by a wind-blowing sound, followed by a synth-guitar arpeggio with a brief static sound which repeats each time when the TV static plays, as well as three orchestral hits each time when the background changes. It all ends with a male announcer saying "Это — Первый!" ("This is the first one!").
• Countdown: A piano theme with a bass tune and a brief static sound which repeats each time when a channel switch knob turns to the left. When the channel switch knob reached the first channel, the same male announcer from above is heard, followed by a whoosh when a Russian flag is formed and a 2-note synth-accordion tune.
• Music Hour on ORT: A synth-flute tune sounding similar to the beginning of the Still-life ident, accompanied by a ascending warbling synth note when a bar starts to rotate, which transitions into a rock theme, then a brief flute tune, and finally, a triumphant theme with a descending warbling synth note when musical notes turn into a text.

2nd ID (October 1, 1995-December 31, 1996)

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  The beginning of the ident

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  The end of the ident

Visuals: Over a blue-ish gray cloudy background are three gray diagonal bars containing a slideshow of people walking. A silver stylized, italic number "1" flies from the right side of the screen, leaving its black copy with a white glow on the first diagonal bar, and left the screen. The spaced-out text "ОРТ" (in Empire font) in black with its white glow is also seen, sliding from the right side of the screen, leaving its silver copy on the bottom-right corner of a number "1". During this, several glowing blue lines (both diagonal and linear) are seen forming around the bars and fading out. Everything appears to be watercolored. After a while, the screen fades to a blue-ish gray marble diagonal bar behind the silver ORT logo of the time, which consisted of a stylized, italic number "1", which is located between two small parallelogram shapes at the bottom of a number; in the first parallelogram shape is the letter "О", in the second parallelogram shape is the letter "Т", and the letter "Р" is located near the bottom of the number "1". The background consists of two spinning, thin gray rings over a gray wavy flag.

Trivia: The logo was designed by Anton Nenashev.

Technique: CGI.

Audio: A majestic string/truimphant fanfare composed by Vladimir Ratskevich.

3rd ID (January 1, 1997-September 30, 2000)

Visuals: Over a dark blue background with moving clouds on the right side of the screen are the copies of the wavy, transparent white text "общественное российское телевидение" sliding from the right to left. Suddenly, an orange flash occurs in the center of the screen, causing a giant orange/blue letter "О", along with four flying white pigeons to appear. An arc of the transparent white text "ОБЩЕСТВЕННОЕ" appears spinning, while an orange flash flies to the left off-screen, and a square zooms in the background, containing a footage of a cloudy sky. The letter "О" zooms in to the left off-screen, while leaving a curved line, which transitions into a orange/blue footage of a sunset with a cloudy sky in the forest; a giant, tilted transparent letter "Р" is seen over the background, along with a wavy, slowly moving, transparent white text "РОССИЙСКОЕ" at a tilted angle, and a (barely visible) spinning iris, containing the text "общественное российское телевидение". After a while, the screen wipes via several glowing, curved lines into a giant royal blue letter "Т" over a dark blue background with a starfield, along with a yellow satellite near the right side of the screen; a ring of seven copies of the white text "ТЕЛЕВИДЕНИЕ" are seen, slowly spinning against a letter "Т", along with the same iris from the shot with a letter "Р". As the satellite rotates to show a red light, coming from its antenna, the shot with a letter "Т" is revealed to be a part of a zooming out number "1" from before, but now it's slightly simplified and in golden color, along with its thin white outline. In the shot with a number "1", the background consists of a mostly light blue cloudy-like background, with a blue-tinted footage of a tilted cloudy sky at the upper-right corner, an orange/yellow/purple light near the bottom-left corner of the screen, along with a blurred dark blue triangle-like shape, and the copies of the transparent white text "ОБЩЕСТВЕННОЕ РОССИЙСКОЕ ТЕЛЕВИДЕНИЕ" sliding from the right to left in the middle of the screen. While a number "1" zooms out to its place near the top of the screen, several glowing rings are also zooming out, forming a one 2D-looking, tilted golden ring, with its upper-right part being cut out. While several glowing rings fade out, a golden ring zooms out to its place against a number "1" and shines. During the animation of a zooming ring, a group three golden parallelogram shapes with a cut out of the letters "ОРТ" (in Helvetica Black Oblique font), along with its transparent white copy and its outline, zooms out to the bottom of the screen below the number "1", and when its transparent white copy and its outline are zooming out to their places, they fade out as a transparent black horizontal parallelogram shape fades in behind the three parallelogram shapes as they shine. Four transparent white pigeons are seen, flying through a number "1", and a light from an antenna of the satellite is seen peeking out through a number "1" until it fades out. A shiny, thin ring is seen during the logo animation, zooming out behind a logo, surrounding it.

Technique: A mix of CGI and live-action, done by Igor Barbe.

Audio:

• 1997-1999: A majestic synth orchestra fanfare ending with a 5-note flute/synth tune.
• 2000: A light synth orchestra fanfare ending with a lighter rendition of the same 5-note tune from above.
• Both of these music variants were composed by Sergey Chekryzhov.

4th ID (October 1, 2000-August 31, 2003)

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Visuals:

• 2000-2001: The ident starts with either one or two shots of a various place in the streets, or a close-up of one or two spinning, mirrored diagonal bars in the streets. In the next shot, it turns to be a current ORT/Channel One logo, which consists of a stylized italic number "1" with its split bottom. A then-current URL address ("www.ortv.ru") appears near the bottom-right corner of the screen next to the logo via a "emerging" effect, as the street behind the logo and URL becomes out-of-focus.
• 2001-2003: Pretty much the same concept as the 2000 idents, except the shots are now in 16:9 ratio over a black screen, and the URL address (which would change to a current one after the TV channel renamed itself - "www.1tv.ru") is already in its place, except in the bottom of the screen below the shots of the streets and a logo. Unlike the 2000 idents, the street remains on-focus.

Variants: There are handful of variants of the idents, with places in the streets vary depending on the ident. This includes:

• A grassfield with power transmission lines at daytime.
• A circus with acrobats.
• A group of soilders walking in the street.
• A grassfield in the evening.
• A forest with birch trees.
• A sea in the evening.
• A swamp with a frog.
• Cyclists near the mountains.
• A man with a dog and a campfire in the forest.
• A foggy river with a man fishing.
• A field of trees at daytime.
• A forest with a river.

Technique: Live-action with model work. The 2000 idents also feature computer animation.

Audio: A long, light dreamy synth tune (which varies, depending on the ident) with a reverbed sound which sounds like a slowed-down sound of a dropped metallic object.

Legacy: These are ORT/Channel One's final regular idents to date.

◄ Channel 1 Ostankino

Channel One (Russia)