The typical purpose of television idents is to give the channel some brand identity which will help establish and promote the channel. This is some by using distinctive technicalities which are recognisable to the channel. These include; use of colour, logos, font types and sizes, placement, techniques, mood and tone, and sound (Diegetic and Non-diegetic.) Idents also help the audience connect with the channel because the idents are created to identify and reflect the channels audience. For example, if the channel was targeted towards a creative audience, then the idents will be creative as well. The idents establish the channels ethos. Ethoses are important as it shows what the channel is about. BBC One has done this by making all of their idents feature a circle, which represents the globe relating to their around the world coverage. Idents usually provide imagery to accompany the continuity announcements, and help to provide gaps in the schedule, helping maintain continuity across the broadcast schedule. The Typical design features in television idents include uses of colour, which are extremely distinctive. Red and white are BBC1's memorable colours, whilst purple and white and memorable colours for E4. Logos are maybe the most distinctive design feature in TV idents; this is because many logos have the channel's name in them. Duration is an essential part in making idents, if it's too short the viewer might not know what's going on, and if it's too long then the viewer will lose interest and the ident will become more of a short animation rather than an ident. Therefore idents are to be made to last around about 10 seconds. The tone of the idents is determined on the tone of the channel, as the ident is used to reflect the channels ethos. If the channel has lots of comedy shows then the channel will usually feature idents that are surreal and creative. These types of idents can be seen on channels such as BBC3 and E4, whereas channels like BBC2 and BBC4 are used for more factual programming, therefore the idents tend to have a more serious tone to the them, as it reflects the tone of the channel. The text and image based idents relate to the different features of the ident. For example, the image gives the audience something to look at and grab their attention. This is an effective way of reaching out to the audience by using bright colours and moving imagery. The text however, is useful for giving appropriate information, such as what channel is on, what shows are coming up next. Example of text based idents can be seen in the breaks on E4 when a schedule will come up for the next three shows, whilst the imagery is shown next to it giving a preview of the show that's being announced. The opportunities that the idents give are the way it helps engage viewers and targets them to watch the shows that the channel is broadcasting. Creative channels and idents for creative people, informative channels and idents for people who want facts. It helps the audience remember the channel as if the logo and idents is distinctive enough. Idents, unlike break bumpers that only appear on commercial channels, are typically used by every channel, so the ident is more relatable to one specific channel, helping brand identity. Within the given guidelines, ident design offers a great deal of creative freedom, which can encourage audience participation and involvement, such as when E4 do Estings competitions for the public to get involved with. By doing this, idents can be used to showcase creative talent of new and existing artists. Idents can also develop ideas and themes across a range of short films. There are however limitations with ident and on screen graphics. These can include many factors such as: -Being too time consuming: Graphics and animation can take a long time to plan and develop meaning that the animators will need a lot of preparation before making them. -Cost: Animation can cost a lot to make, whether it's the software of the tools that are used to make them. Because most animations need a team of animators who will work for a long time, it means that they will also need to be paid. -Typography: Because of the vast array of screen sizes in recent years, it can be hard to create the graphics that will look crisp on all screens and screen sizes. -Resolution: Sometimes the graphics look different on various devices. This will depend on the resolution that the graphic was exported at. An example of this is when a video looks clear on a PC but then when viewed on a phone, it looks pixelated and out of focus. -Colour: Red, Green and Blue is a colour model used for screens. The red is very sensitive to interference through transmission, which is why graphic designers try not to use red so much. Depending on the screen that the graphics are viewed on, the colours can look different, leading to graphic designers trying to optimise their work. -Aspect Ratio: Television aspect is 4:6 whilst film aspect is 16:9. Since cinema had started using widescreen in their films graphic designers have found a limitation on having to use these ratios. Another limitation this has caused is the fact that the graphics are created on computers but are transmitted on to TVs, which are usually widescreen as well; therefore the graphic designers must always be aware of how the finished product will look on the TV. There are many developments in technique when it comes to 2D animations. The earliest example of 2D animation would be the cave paintings in prehistoric times that would tell a story. In the 1700s shadow theatre became popular in France, which involved using black silhouettes across a screen. In 1972 an animator, Will Vinton, won an award for his film 'Closed Mondays' which was created in the process of using clay to create a story. Will Vinton later copyrighted the name of the process as 'Claymation'. Similar methods were used to create the popular show 'Wallace and Gromit' in 2005 and many other similar works. CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) films such as Toy Story have been made for a long time, which is a process of digitally creating characters and setting using modern computer technology. Other types of animation include flip books which is a book, with each page the same image only slightly moved, so that when the audience flip through it, the illusion of movement is shown. Cel animation is used in a lot of popular TV shows such as American Dad and Family Guy. Cel animation when the animators get separate layers of plastic, draw the characters and backgrounds on them and pile them together to create a scene. Hand drawn rotascoping, which is when the animators trace over real footage frame by frame to create live action animation with a hand drawn feel. There are developers and pioneers in animation, who have contributed to animation. Such as John Ayrton Paris in 1825 the Thaumotrope was invented which a piece of card had attached to a piece of string on each end. Each side of the card had a different image, which when spun fast merged into one image. For example, if one side had a picture of a bird, and the other side had a picture of a cage, once spun the two images should merge to look like the bird is in the cage. In 1832 The Phenakistoscope, was invented by Joseph Plateau, which was a round disc with slots around the edge showing individual pictures, when spun are merged, creating the illusion of movement. William Horner: William Horner was a pioneer in animation as he was the inventor of the Zoetrope. He invented it in 1834. A zoetrope is a device that gives the illusion of action through rapid movement. It was an improvement to the phenakistoscope which was a spinning disc attached to a vertical handle. The Zoetrope however is a drum shaped mechanism with slits in the side for people to look through whilst it spun. It was an improvement as the Zoetrope could be used by more than one person at a time and didn’t require a mirror unlike the phenakistoscope. Originally known as the “Wheel of the Devil”, it was later renamed in 1867 to “Wheel of Life” when it was panted in England by M. Bradley, and in America by William F. Lincoln. William Horner was born in Bristol in 1786 and died in Bath in 1837. The Stereoscope was created in 1838 by Charles Wheatstone. The invention created a 3D image for the viewer which could be viewed by looking through two lenses, at two images that had placed beside each other. 1865 the first modern comic strip 'Max and Mortiz' was created by Wilhelm Busch. This led to the creation of other comics. In 1930s the golden age of comic books came around, including Dick Tracey, Flash Gordon and Tarzan. In 1934 the character of 'Superman' was created in a newspaper strip. This led to more superheroes such as 'Spiderman', written by Stan Lee. Thomas Edison was a big influence on film, but also on animation. By inventing the Kinetoscope, a machine that creates the illusion of movement by move a strip of film of images going over a light with a high speed shutter, Edison was able to be adapted to the movie projectors used today. Walt Disney: Walt Disney, the co-founder of Walt Disney studios made many animations, by drawing and voicing them. Some of his earliest work was between 1920- 1937, where he created short animations such as commercials out of cut outs. His animations were very popular in Kansas City, which led him to go on to get his own studio, known as Laugh-O-Gram. He hired a team of additional animators. However the company went bankrupt so Walt decided to move to California. Here he had a lot of successful characters such as Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, however lost the rights to him to Universal Studios in 1928 and created 'Alice Comedies'. He did this by using cel animation, however the most popular character that he created was Mickey Mouse in 1947 when he made the shorts 'Plane crazy' and 'The Galloping Gaucho.' Mickey Mouse's popularity skyrocketed after a businessman named Pat Powers gave Disney and cine-phone and a sound synchronization process, to help create the short 'Steamboat Willie.' Disney then created fairy tale adaptions in feature length animations such as Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Bambi, Peter Pan, etc. After his death in 1966 animators continued his work with a lot of popular films made in the 90s including The Lion King, Aladdin, and Beauty and the Beast. In 1995 the CGI animated feature was made by Pixar Studios (Owned by Disney Studios). This film was a cornerstone in how animation can be done without drawing and became hugely successful, which spawned two sequels. The studio then went onto create 13 more highly successful films, including Finding Nemo, A Bugs Life, Monsters Inc, Cars, Ratatouille, The Incredibles and many others. Pixar have also created shorts to run at the start of a feature length movie. Disney and Pixar Studio are still going with new films coming out almost every year, including CGI, or Cel Animations. Contemporary work includes Monty Python which is known for its distinctive title sequence including a giant foot. Monty Python: Monty Python is a surreal TV comedy group made popular in the 1970s. Starting with a sketch show in 1969, 'Monty Python's Flying Circus', the creators went on to make feature length adaptions such 'Monty Python and The Holy Grail' and 'Life of Brian.' The series was created by Graham Chapman, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, Eric Idle, John Cleese, and Terry Gilliam. All who starred in the show as well. Monty Python was well known for its surrealist comedy and scripting, but also for its animations which were created by Terry Gilliam, using paper cut-outs. Gilliam used cut-outs of old photographs and magazines, to make the show more surreal and hilarious. This was because it was easier to make swift, subtle movement when making animation rather than using cel animation. The paper cut outs are ideal for a show like Monty Python as it seems to work well with the overall feel of the show in a surrealist sense. The most notable work he's done is seen in 'Monty Python's Flying Circus.' These include a pram that devours old ladies, a menacing London cat, and a policeman with the torso of a shapely woman. His most memorable and iconic animation was the giant foot in the title sequences of 'Flying Circus'. The planning that I did when creating my animation included; watching other animations to see the technical features of them, come up with ideas for my idents and story boarding them. Creating and cutting out the characters, items and backgrounds. Getting the equipment ready, such as a still shot camera and tripod. When writing up the ideas for my animation and drawing out the story board, I overlooked a couple of technicalities such as having the time and resources to create what I had planned. For example, in my bird animation, the original plan didn't fill in 10 seconds of time meaning that I had to create another scene to fill in the time. I did this by having the bird do a loop in mid-air whilst carrying the logo. In my 'Tree' Animation, the original plan was to just have the tree shake around on a plain background a couple of times until the BBC 3 logo drops out of it, however I realised that by adding a background to it, the animation would be more interesting to watch. Because of the distinctive purple in the BBC 3 logo, the background banner of the ‘Rock Animation’ was coloured in purple to make it recognisable as a BBC 3 product. The colours are drawn bright, representing the audiences want for flash new programming that they can enjoy. The idents were based on the programming choice of the channel, for example the ‘Rock Animation’ was to represent how BBC 3 give live coverage of music events such as Glastonbury festival, whilst ‘Bird’ and ‘Tree’ animations were to represent the cartoon based shows that they air, such as Family Guy and American Dad which are imported from American network Fox and air in the UK through BBC 3. The soundtracks in all of them are quite upbeat and have a modern feel to them, a way to relate to the target audience who will most likely listen to similar music.
As far as audience responses go, I have had shown another student, Beau van Riessen, positive feedback on the animations. “They were colourful, well-paced and kept my attention. It is clear as to what channel is being represented due to the obvious imagery of the logo.” This shows that the logos are well used in the idents and that they represent the channel well. William Horner: William Horner was a pioneer in animation as he was the inventor of the Zoetrope. He invented it in 1834. A zoetrope is a device that gives the illusion of action through rapid movement. It was an improvement to the phenkitascope which was a spinning disc attached to a vertical handle. The Zoetrope however is a drum shaped mechanism with slits in the side for people to look through whilst it spun. It was an improvement as the Zoetrope could be used by more than one person at a time and didn’t require a mirror unlike the phenkitascope. Originally known as the “Wheel of the Devil”, it was later renamed in 1867 to “Wheel of Life” when it was panted in England by M. Bradley, and in America by William F. Lincoln. William Horner was born in Bristol in 1786 and died in Bath in 1837.
http://tomtyldesleyanimation1.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/animation-pioneers-william-horner.html http://animationgeek.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/early-pioneer-william-george-horner.html Cel Animation: Cel animation is when a scene is created using transparent cellulose acetate. Each one featuring an image of an individual character, or object. The layers are put on top of each other to create a full picture that in turn creates the story. A classic example of cel animation is the popular television series; The Simpsons. Creator Matt Groening, has the transparent cellulose acetate painted and drawn on, to create the characters and environment. This is one of the most time consuming parts of the animation process as it involves the actors recording the voices for the characters, and then drawing the scene in accordance to the lip sync. Once the layers have been put together, each individual movement of the character must be photographed, put into editing where the voices and sound effects are synced with the imagery, and then sent to the lab to make film project print or created into a video. http://animatedtv.about.com/od/thesimpsonsfaq/a/celanimation.htm Walt Disney: Walt Disney, the co-founder of Walt Disney studios made many animations, by drawing and voicing them. Some of his earliest work was between 1920- 1937, where he created short animations such as commercials out of cut outs. His animations were very popular in Kansas City, which led him to go on to get his own studio, known as Laugh-O-Gram. He hired a team of additional animators. However the company went bankrupt so Walt decided to move to California. Here he had a lot of successful characters such as Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, however lost the rights to him to Universal Studios in 1928 and created 'Alice Comedies'. He did this by using cel animation, however the most popular character that he created was Mickey Mouse in 1947 when he made the shorts 'Plane crazy' and 'The Galloping Gaucho.' Mickey Mouse's popularity skyrocketed after a businessman named Pat Powers gave Disney and cine-phone and a sound synchronization process, to help create the short 'Steamboat Willie.' Disney then created fairy tale adaptions in feature length animations such as Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Bambi, Peter Pan, etc. After his death in 1966 animators continued his work with a lot of popular films made in the 90s including The Lion King, Aladdin, and Beauty and the Beast. In 1995 the CGI animated feature was made by Pixar Studios (Owned by Disney Studios). This film was a cornerstone in how animation can be done without drawing and became hugely successful, which spawned two sequels. The studio then went onto create 13 more highly successful films, including Finding Nemo, A Bugs Life, Monsters Inc, Cars, Ratatouille, The Incredibles and many others. Pixar have also created shorts to run at the start of a feature length movie. Disney and Pixar Studio are still going with new films coming out almost every year, including CGI, or Cel Animations. http://www.biography.com/people/walt-disney-9275533#early-life Monty Python: Monty Python is a surreal TV comedy group made popular in the 1970s. Starting with a sketch show in 1969, 'Monty Python's Flying Circus', the creators went on to make feature length adaptions such 'Monty Python and The Holy Grail' and 'Life of Brian.' The series was created by Graham Chapman, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, Eric Idle, John Cleese, and Terry Gilliam. All who starred in the show as well. Monty Python was well known for it's surrealist comedy and scripting, but also for it's animations which were created by Terry Gilliam, using paper cut-outs. Gilliam used cut-outs of old photographs and magazines, to make the show more surreal and hilarious. This was because it was easier to make swift, subtle movement when making animation rather than using cel animation. The paper cut outs are ideal for a show like Monty Python as it seems to work well with the overall feel of the show in a surrealist sense. The most notable work he's done is seen in 'Monty Python's Flying Circus.' These include a pram that devours old ladies, a menacing London cat, and a policeman with the torso of a shapely woman. His most memorable and iconic animation was the giant foot in the title sequences of 'Flying Circus'. Terry Gilliam appeared on a show called 'Do It Yourself Film Animation Show' where he was quoted as saying "The whole point of animation to me is to tell a story, make a joke, express an idea. The technique itself doesn’t really matter. Whatever works is the thing to use. That’s why I use cut-out. It’s the easiest form of animation I know." http://www.openculture.com/2014/07/terry-gilliam-reveals-the-secrets-of-monty-python-animations.html http://www.imdb.com/search/keyword?keywords=monty-python The first TV ident I've chosen to analyse is one featured E4. It shows a bear being picked up by a crane and moved away from it's spot whilst the scene pans to the right revealing more of the surroundings, which seem to be a scrapyard. The technique used for making this ident was CGI and 2D animation. The ident has both diegetic and non diegetic sounds The diegetic sound is from of the crane which is shown in the ident. Non diegetic sound features background music, and voiceover of the person informing what shows about to be aired. The colour of dominant colours are yellow, white, and purple. The ident adopts a slightly surrealist tone. This reflects the ethos of the channel as it is creative and involves the public in the creativity of the advert. Some of the shows are not serious dramas, and instead the channel broadcasts comedies. The purple and white are the two recognisable colours for E4, which is why it was used in the advert for E4. It relates to their target audience, youthful people, as the channel airs a lot of comedies, and shows like Misfits which is about people in the similar age range of E4s audience. The second ident I'm analyzing is the BBC. The particular one I'm analyzing is the hippos swimming in a circle.. This is made with 3D animation and CGI. The dominant colours involved are Grey from the hippos. White from the text and Red from the fish. This works with BBC's ethos because the circle represents the globe that BBC often uses in other idents. The itself represents world coverage. The BBC's most recognizable colours are red and white, which are featured in this ident. Another fact about the channels ethos is that it is a public service broadcasting company that is informative, entertaining and educational.
Animation Timeline
2005: Wallace and Gromit was created by Aardman animations. The characters created with modelling clay and wire for the characters and then animated using stop motion animation. 1995 Pixar Studios created 'Toy Story' using CGI. 1975 Will Vinton received an award for best animated film ‘Closed Mondays’. He also copyrighted the term 'Claymation' to describe the the technique of making animations with clay. 1962 ‘Spiderman’ written by Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko illustrated the cartoon to increase the sales of the Amazing Fantasy Comic. 1934 ‘Superman’ written by Jerome Siegal and Joseph Shuster and created into a newspaper comic strip. 1930s Golden Age of Comics e.g. Flash Gordon, Dick Tracey and Tarzan. This later inspired many more comic super heroes and narratives in comic form. 1888 Louis Le Prince shot the first moving pictures in Leeds on Leeds Bridge and Roundhay Garden Scene. 1886 Louis Le Prince built and patented a one lens camera. 1871 Leeds Technical School of Art was founded by Louis Le Prince and his wife Elizabeth. 1865 First modern comic strip ‘Max and Mortiz’ created by Wilhelm Busch. 1851 At the Great Exhibition the Stereoscope was on display. 1838 The Stereoscope was invented by Charles Wheatstone. It created a 3D image for the viewer to see by looking through two lenses at two images placed next to each other. 1832 The Phenakistoscope invented by Joseph Plateau. A round disc with slots around the edge showing individual pictures and when spun the images merge together showing continuous movement. 1834 The Zoetrope or The Wheel of Life was invented by George Horner. This was similar to a Phenakistoscope and created the illusion of animation, only this invention was drum shaped, and had slits in the sides. 1925 The Thaumotrope was invented. This is a disc with a picture one side of a bird and a cage on the other. When the disc is spun on a string it looks like the bird is in the cage. 1817 The 'kaleidoscope' was invented by Sir David Brewster, a tube using two mirrors to reflect multiple images of coloured glass pieces. It became one of the most popular optical toys ever created. 1700s Shadow theater became popular in France. This involved creating black silhouettes on a screen. 1500s In Turkey a mischievous character called ‘Karagoz’ was created, being based on a real person living in Turkey. It worked by having a coloured shadow puppet made from camel hide moving behind a screen made out of muslin with a candle illuminating the scene from the back. 1066 The Bayeux Tapestry captured the Battle of Hastings. 28,000 BC In prehistoric times cave paintings were used to created stories of hunting and create the illusion of the movement of the bisons. All of the idents will be made with paper cut-outs and stop motion animation. 1) A bird is flying, dives down to pick up BBC 3 logo and then ascends back upwards. Flies onto another background and drops the BBC 3 logo, which lands into a television set. 2) A band performing on stage at a live music festival whilst the singer, guitarist and audience move, with the BBC 3 Logo flashing on a banner. 3) A tree is standing still and then starts rustling. Tree stays still and then rustles again. BBC 3 logo falls out of the tree, lands on his upside down, hops onto it's side. Hops the right way up. I started off by thinking of the ideas and drawing up story boards for them, detailing what's going to be shown in each ident. The animation technique that I have chosen to use for all three of my idents is stop motion animation. To do this I have to get the appropriate equipment such as paper, pencils and scissors to cut out the pieces once they are drawn. This is how I created the backgrounds and the characters/ props. The camera that I used to take these images was a DSLR Nikon Coolpix L310. I used it because of the sharpness can get with the pictures and the focus is easy to use, giving me a clear image. I edited all of the shots together, into a final video using the editing software Final Cut Pro on the college Macs. This meant that I could add sound in during the post production stage.
BBC 3's distinctive colours are purple, pink and white. The Channels Etho is similar to other BBC channels; to educate, entertain and inform. BBC3 does this by putting on comedy shows such as 'Gavin and Stacey', 'Uncle' and 'Bad Education' to give out the entertainment factor. They put out documentaries such as 'Our War' to inform and educate the audience about current affairs. BBC3 are also known for their 60 second update news programme, broadcasted between shows, to inform the audience on other world affairs. Show like 'Top Gear' are used to entertain and inform. BBC3 has won several BAFTAs for their work on various shows.
It's core target audience are British 16-34 year olds, in the AB1 demographic. The channels tone is warm, personal, surprising and creative. Watership Down is an animated film, in the adventure, drama genre, which was made in 1978. It's about rabbits who are trying to find a new home after theirs is destroyed by humans, whilst they fight for survival after encountering many dangerous foes that lay in their way. It was written and Directed by Martin Rosen as an adaption of the Richard Adams novel by the same name. The run time is 101 minutes (1 hours 41 minutes).
Synopsis: "A group of rabbits flee their doomed warren and face many dangers to find and protect their new home." The voice actors include John Hurt and Richard Briers http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078480/?ref_=nv_sr_1 |
Robert SmithMy work for Media BTEC Level 3. |
- Unit 4: Creative Media Production Managment Project & Unit 28: Corporate & Promotional
- Unit 32: Designing Idents for TV & Unit 34: 2D Animation Production
- Unit 27: Factual Programming & Unit 36: Interview Techniques
- Unit 6: Critical Approaches
- Unit 23 Multi- Camera Techniques
- Unit 5: Working to a Brief
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