Carte Blanche on M-Net on Sunday evening unveiled a brand-new beautiful, edgy, richly symphonic, "rewind" opening theme and transparent on-air logo for its 25th birthday broadcast, done from atop what was once the Hillbrow Tower.
The brand-new Carte Blanche's richly symbolic opening sequence - in keeping with the show's longrunning motto of "the right to see it all" - cleverly "peels back" the layers of the types of stories South African viewers have come to expect from the highly acclaimed Sunday night at 19:00 current affairs show.
The iconic theme tunes has been updated but still maintains the sweeping violins and the nine high end notes as among other things ink lifts up beautifully from censored documents, forest dirt and leaves lift to reveal a girl's pink shoe, building rubble (from an earthquake or the zombie apocalypse) lifts to reveal not quite a zombie but a dust covered man.
Dave Pollecutt's beautiful edgy theme music was updated with a new orchestration by Robert Michael Brinkworth and Masters and Savant Worldwide did the stunning opening imaging and refreshed Carte Blanche's logo.
The Carte Blanche cold open started with a stunning panoramic view of Johannesburg's winter nightscape, then zooming in on the top of the Telkom Tower, 269 metres high, from the outside, with Derek Watts and Bongani Bingwa visible sitting inside on white chairs.
"Welcome to our 25th birthday broadcast," said Derek Watts.
"Carte Blanche has been a mirror on South Africa for 25th years," said George Mazarakis, the executive producer, interviewed by Derek Watts, "and deals, very eloquently with the issues which we faced as a society and as a country."
"It's not an easy thing doing investigative journalism," said George Mazarakis. "And I think its become more difficult. And clearly the legislation that's floating about is designed to prevent that kind of journalism from happening."
Ruda Landman, the former co-anchor made a surprise guest appearance by video link to congratulate the show.
Carte Blanche did an insert about the book, Carte Blanche 25 Years, the content of which falls somewhat short of expectations for a book of this type
Derek Watts cut a special 25th birthday celebration cake on the air.
