The Making of the WeatherGens

The WeatherGens consisted of twelve actors/models dressed in elaborate costumes, each representing a particular weather condition. The 'Gens were commissioned from London design company Tutssels by Powergen, now E.ON, sponsors of ITV weather, and they were produced by Lambie-Nairn. Their flamboyant costumes and make-up were put together by the talented Carolyn Corben and Harvey Bertram-Brown of the New Renaissance company, veteran designers of clothes, sets and pop videos. Click the photos below to view their websites.

In particular, a horoscope promotion for a newspaper caught the eye of the Powergen executives, as this featured several models dressed as signs of the Zodiac, complete with fantastic hair and costume designs. The people at Powergen loved what they saw, and without further delay, Carolyn and Harvey were invited to work on the new weather idents.

They produced many designs for the different weather conditions and submitted them to the director Rob Kelly, and Powergen, who then chose their favourites. They then created the costumes and cast the actors/models and worked with a great make-up artist called Christopher Diggle, to design the all-important hair and make-up.

Sadly, Christopher Diggle passed away in 2000.

Carolyn and Harvey had only 12 weeks to complete all the costumes, so they drafted in a dozen helpers. Each shoot was finished in a day; for some characters, hair and make-up took as long as four hours. Some of the costumes had to be supported between shots, and padded to take their own weight, rather than hurting the models.

In addition to the 12 idents, Gilda, Brellina, Norwin and Nimbella had variants of theirs, known as "Showers" and "Storm" versions. These had different music and a more dramatic sequence.

The response to the new idents was fantastic, with many people writing and phoning up - myself included - the clear winner for most popular WeatherGen was Shivera - the first 'Gen to air on 11th November 1996.

Powergen released a set of promotional postcards featuring the characters.

Prior to the WeatherGens starting, ITV weather idents consisted of several simple but memorable sequences which began in 1993, all featuring the Powergen logo in the background. A duck on ice, a shivering man, raindrops, a dog in the wind and more, all ending with the same five note motif. Whilst these were popular and fondly remembered, the WeatherGens who followed went on to become a phenomenal success.

Perhaps less fondly remembered is a 1997 climate change protest by Greenpeace over Powergen's use of fossil fuels - several activists dressed as WeatherGens - albeit their own versions, representing extreme weather conditions such as floods and drought!

25th October 2001 was a sad occasion for fans when the 'Gens aired for the last time and were replaced in favour of more "modern" i.e - awful - idents. By the time they were replaced, the idents had already been drastically edited from their original 30 second length. The endcaps suffered from the addition of an annoying voiceover and text superimposed on the images.

In January 2002, Powergen was acquired by E.ON. The idents didn't improve either, and by 2007, E.ON handed over the sponsorship to the likes of esure and Shelia's Wheels before Confused.com took over in January 2010.

From here up until 7th June 2010, Confused.com used a set of idents which were a vast improvement on the previous lot. The "Dancing Weather symbols" which consisted of five people dressed in foam cloud and sun costumes - London comedian Lloyd Woolf starred as the Thunder Cloud character - gained a cult following, until they were abruptly removed from our screens.

Currently, sponsorship by the Co-operative is being used for the ITV1 weather forecast idents. Will we ever see quality worthy of the WeatherGens on TV again? Creativity is sadly lacking these days, however, I and other loyal fans are doing our best to keep the WeatherGens spirit alive...online and in print!

You can watch all the full-length WeatherGens idents, plus a behind-the-scenes video on YouTube!

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