The End of Show Credits

Well as much as I would like to completely lose them and just have a credit to say “For a list of cast and crew that worked on this programme go to ‘production company URL’.”, this is not about the complete end of end credits as much as the end of the common roller at least. Got to start somewhere.

Internally we have a policy on end credits that says we must do everything we can to avoid using a roller. The only time we do is if the technical specifications call for it or if there are so many credits that it’s the only way we can get them into the allotted time, even then I’ll try to fit them into cards.

The reasons for this are really simple:

• I don’t find them athsteticly pleasing.
• They look terrible on catchup TV. The de-interlacing/compression process typically destroys them and makes them painful to watch.
• They are impossible to read when shrunk. I could argue that they are impossible to ready when not shrunk too unless they have very few credits or have an extra long amount of time to run like a feature film.

The credit roll at the end of this show seems to illustrate my point

https://youtu.be/-lhLn-nEeRo?t=3130

ITV have the right idea on this, it’s in the spec so all their show credits look like this. Always look clean and crisp regardless of the compression torture they are put through. Work well when in progressive or interlaced. Also the same goes with Discovery and most of the US networks. I love this from a channel branding point of view but in general it just makes sense and my eyes happy.

So this is a call to arms for the Online Editors out there. Please push for cards as end credits, together we can make the ends of shows nicer for me to watch. Thanks!