TV Quatre, a French tv station from the past…

Hello,

I’m Eric, from France, and today, i would like to present a personal project running since last year, called « TV Quatre », « TV Four » in English. TV Quatre is a spoof of the French television univers during the 80’s, but with a big particularity : All programs are produced with vintage equipment.

TV Quatre pre-launch promo (2015)


Shows are realized with 1981 old Sony video cameras, stored on U-matic video tapes. Ident, titles, weather maps, slides… Everything is made to seem the most original and old fashioned possible. Without digital special effects.

TV Quatre broadcasts several times a year, with a full night of programming live on YouTube ! Game show, debates, fiction, magazines, local news… the lineup are introduced live by IVC Announcers (called Speakerine in French).

This is a fascinating project that mixes television history, obsolete video technologies, 80’s trends and historical events. Produce a night of broadcast is a lot of work, but it’s really fun.

Here is some pictures of programmes and on screen identity :
http://tvquatre.fr/depotoir/extraits.jpg



TV Quatre pre-launch promo (2015)


The control room :
http://tvquatre.fr/depotoir/12191089_1642740532643753_2958004850753574000_o.jpg

Teletext experiments (Antiope French standard) :
http://tvquatre.fr/depotoir/13115989_1701197640131375_3489934326559445502_o.jpg

You can see excerpts from the first broadcast on YouTube .
And follow TV Quatre on Facebook and Twitter .

British television is a big sources of inspirations for us. I'm sure you'll recognize some references or music!
By the way, we looking for people they want to help us for compose and making audio jingles and themes. In the 80’s style, of course !

Videos are in French (with subtitles in the future). Next broadcast is for September.
Hope you will like it !
Eric

It's so cheesy and 80's and I love it!

Very... committed.
I don't know a lick of French, and I'm sold already. Also, nice pre-launch promo - seems a bit like something a channel would actually broadcast on a loop in the 80's before starting (for the first time). Hope everything goes well, Eric!

EDIT: A few hours after post, I see you've put English subtitles on the announcement video. Guess that cancels the whole "don't know a lick of French" thing out.

Most excellent - bonus points for using the Oxford stripey typeface and scanline globes!

Just how I imagine French tv in the 80s was. A shame you don't cover the 70s as TF1 had a psychedelic logo!

Indeed! 70's era is a very interesting decade for French television. But finding 70's video equipement is really hard!
But even in the 80's, you can find on French tv, psychedelic and poetic graphics !