30-04-2021, 09:00 PM
lobster post_id=9949 time=1619806446 user_id=890 Wrote:My feeling, given the timelines is that they were produced in widescreen- it would have been very shortsighted to be doing new stuff in 4:3 in the mid 1990s with widescreen being the next big thing.
Though there are examples of things from even later than that having been made in 4:3 then awkwardly shoehorned into 16:9 after the programmes switched, like the 1998 Emmerdale, TOTP and WWTBAM titles (the Emmerdale ones were used longer cropped into 16:9 than they were in 4:3, I think the WWTBAM ones were too), and suprisingly the sponsorship ads for SM:TV and CD:UK which were made in 2003 were made in 4:3 as the former were re-used for MoM who cropped them, and the first few CD:UK editions of 2004 actually switched into 4:3 just for the sponsorship bumpers before they finally re-edited them with pillarboxes.
I don't know if the actual titles or graphics for SM:TV or CD:UK were made in 4:3 or 16:9, though I have seen someone suggest that CD:UK's titles were redone for 16:9 and you can see subtle differences, but I've never gone to the effort to compare them to check. Both shows were themselves amongst the last shows still being made in 4:3 right until the end of 2003, presumably there must have been some editorial reason for it, certainly not technical seeing as studio 2 at TLS was 16:9 capable even when the shows began back in 1998.