Discover Card 2004 Countdown

The **2004 Countdown** is the seventh digital countdown to be used on the 55-foot billboard where the Allied Chemical sign used to be.

## Design

We start off with a background what appears to look like a green room. We zoom into a blue and orange clock zooms in rapidly until it takes over the screen at 56. Throughout the countdown, when it hits a multiple of 10, the numbers blink faster. Shortly after the countdown hits 40, the view of the clock changes. It changes again shorty before the countdown hits 19. At 10, the numbers begin shaking, and when the countdown hits 1, the numbers blink rapidly.

At 0, the numbers break into pieces, Happy appears from above, and New Year appears letter by letter. The letters blink a few times before the clock opens and a cuckoo bird pops up. Confetti and the 2004 numerals then fly out from its mouth. The clock zooms out during this process on a black background before fading away, The numerals flash continuously and then spins to the bottom right of the screen a few seconds later. The Happy New Year text appears letter by letter, almost like a computer-typing effect. A few seconds later, the text leaves the screen before transitioning to a red screen with New York's buildings, where the 2004 text slides in from the right. Moments later, the numbers moves to the bottom of the screen, and the Happy New Year text appears, with "New Year" sliding from the top, and "Happy" from the right. A few moments later, a spinning line appears and zooms out until disappearing. Two dots appear at the left and right, and one in the middle which takes over the entire screen. A green outlined circle appears and transforms into one of the zeroes in the numerals of the year. The same animation of the Happy New Year text on a black background plays. This time, after leaving the scene, multiple green halo dots quickly zooms one by one, until a vertical oval follows, which looks like the 0. The oval zooms out and turns white, revealing to be the first zero in the numerals of the year, setting on the same background and said New York Buildings, which are now green. Instead of more text sliding in, we cut to a crowd of squares zooming away from us. One of them passes through the camera, grows until the screen is filled, then flashes. We return to the black background in which now all text and numerals appear letter by letter in said computer-typing effect. The transition loops, with 2 more different colors (blue and pink) before finally replaying from the first one.

An Hourly Countdown version of this also exists. The hand, lines and the green ball in the middle are removed, the 0 in the tens digit is removed in the last 9 seconds, the camera is facing directly at it and is also offset. The Discover Card logo is also seen below the numbers. At 0, the clock and logo (except for the numbers) pulse. It's currently unknown what the Hours To Go text looks like.

## Trivia

* This is the first countdown to use the Ticking SFX that is currently used today.
* Although the Final Countdown has all footage available, The Hourly Countdown's missing footages are 20-11, 7 to Most of 4, and the "Hours To Go" text.

## Gallery

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