Queen Mary’s College BTEC Level 3 Extended Diploma in Creative Media Production

Unit 32: Designing Idents for Television & Unit 34: 2D Animation Production Evaluation Guidelines.This evaluation was completely redone for second submission.

NOTE: As this is a combined unit, this evaluation will be used to assess your understanding in a number of key areas, including:

LO 32.1 - The design and purpose of television idents LO 32.2 - The opportunities and limitations of onscreen graphic representation LO 32.3 - Originating and planning television idents to a brief LO 34.1 - The techniques and development of 2D animation LO 34.4 - Evaluating audience responses to your own 2D animation work

This means that your evaluation MUST answer the following questions:

1. What are the typical purposes of television idents? The main purpose of an ident is to give the channel which the ident belongs to an identity, which helps the specific channel stand out from the rest and to obviously attain viewers. The short ident will usually try to incorporate everything that the channel portrays to the audience. The ident will usually include specific colours, text and similar designs throughout; as prominent throughout bbc three’s idents

2. You should consider such issues as: branding; channel identity; channel ethos; scheduling; audience targeting.

3. What are the typical design features of television idents? You should consider such issues as: use of colour; duration; tone (humours vs serious); text-based vs image-based.

Idents are usually around the 10-20 second so the creators must design an ident that appeals to the audience/ while also informing the said audience about the specific channel/business etc.

The main ingredients for a successful ident, is for it to be memorable, which isn’t constructed by: selective colours, (BBC THREE; BLACK and PINK) which is prominent throughout, allowing the audience immediately to recognise the ident and the channel it belongs to. An ident will have to appeal to the viewer within a short amount of time (typically 5-25 seconds) so if the tone is a humorous one for example (cartoons, comedic voiceovers,

bright colours and over the top sound effects); it will have to be effective to get the intended tone across to the channels viewing audience. The same will also apply to a more serious ident - in which if the ident is effective, the audience will know if the channel is focusing on serious topics…or not. Idents can either be humorous, or emotional – though it all depends on what the channel showcases. For example e4 may have a humorous ident (bright colours, fast moving animation, sound bites) just before re runs of inbetweeners , due to the teenage audience. While on the

Queen Mary’s College BTEC Level 3 Extended Diploma in Creative Media Production

other hand BBC three may have a formal ident before a documentary, that may just have a simple logo transitioning, accompanied by a soundtrack. This would be because the tone would be completely wrong if it was upbeat, if say the documentary was on bullying for example, so an ident of slower pace would be more fitting. Darker colours would also be applicable when aiming for a serious and formal tone.

4. What opportunities do television idents allow for? You should consider such issues as: creation of corporate identity; display of text-based information; branding of content; creation of tone; appeal to target audience; encouragement of brand loyalty; the move from analogue to digital transmission systems.

To create an intended identity for the channel

To create a brand for the specific channel’s content

To create a tone, directly associated with the parent channel

Create an ident that appeals to the target audience

Inform the viewer

Promote the channel to the viewer

5. What are some of the limitations of television idents? Aspect ratioA problem could arise when if the ident was designed for a 4:3 fit, though many may view the ident on a 16:9 tv/computer or monitor – this could lead to a stretching of the rectangular image to fit widescreen! This effect could completely destroy the effect originally intended by the creators.

ColoursColours may become ineffective to viewers that are colour blind, or if the colours portrayed don’t appropriately fit the target demographic…they would be aiming at the wrong audience.

For example pink normally connotes towards a female audience, though if that colour was used in an ident specifically aimed at teenage males, they would be miss marketing their ident.

Queen Mary’s College BTEC Level 3 Extended Diploma in Creative Media Production

Duration The duration may hinder the full effect of the ident and what it promotes – typically the channel as a brand! The short length may be harder for the creator’s…though may become a positive as they can create a short but very memorable ident that is 5 seconds long, instead of one that drags for 20 seconds.

Tone/Text and TypographyA major problem with having such a short set amount of time is that the audience may miss certain aspects, such as; intended tone (humorous) and also the style of typography may be overlooked by the viewer.

What do you understand about the techniques and development of 2D animation?

Cel Animation is an early for of Animation - in which images are hand drawn on to a sheet of celluloid to create frames that belong to a scene and entire feature. Cel Animation is rarely used due to new technology and was prominent in the production of cartoon, where there was over 1 million drawings in the final product. Examples: Dumbo, Bambi and Sleeping Beauty.

Rotoscoping

Rotoscoping is the process of where live footage is traced over, frame by frame – creating animation for live action/animated films. An example of a successful rotoscopse production is Peter Pan. The tracing helped the characters movements flow, allowing for a more believable animation.

Claymation is a method that uses clay and or plasticine figures that are moved per frame (stop motion) to create a lifelike look when photographed or filmed.Mary and Max, Wallace and Gromit and Coraline are just a few that use this technique.

Parallaxing A Parallax may be a displacement or distinction within the apparent position of an associate object, that are viewed on 2 completely different lines of sight, and is measured by the angle or semi-angle of inclination between the background and foreground

Cutout is a form of stopmtion, in which flat materials are sued to create characters, props…EVERYTHING. In the last few years computers have become prominent when creatingcutouts, with the use of scanned images and vector graphics – allowing for a easier creation process and a higher chance of a higher quality of production.

Who were the pioneers and developers of the above techniques?

Queen Mary’s College BTEC Level 3 Extended Diploma in Creative Media Production

A Belgian Physicist named Josep Plateau was the first human to demonstrate the illusion of a moving (in 1832) – he named this device phenakitoscope.

The phenakistoscope used a spinning disc attached vertically to a handle. Arrayed around the disc's center were a series of drawings showing phases of the animation, and cut through it were a series of equally spaced radial slits. The user would spin the disc and look through the moving slits at the disc's reflection in a mirror. The scanning of the slits across the reflected images kept them from simply blurring together, so that the user would see a rapid succession of images that appeared to be a single moving picture.

A variant of it had two discs, one with slits and one with pictures; this was slightly more unwieldy but needed no mirror. Unlike the zoetrope and its successors, the phenakistoscope could only practically be used by one person at a time.

Pioneer: William HornerWilliam Horner created the Daedalum in 1934, which was based around the design of teau’s Phenakistoscope, without the need of a mirror, allowing for multiple people to view the device at one certain time. It was only until 30 years later that the Daedalum would widely recognised - as in  1887 William F Lincoln renamed it the Zoetrope (The meaning of life).

Developer: Hanna Barbera   Hanna Barbera was an American Animation studio, founded in 1957, by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera - formerly of MGM. The company produced many worldwide known cartoon shows, such as: Scooby Doo, The Flintstones and The Smurfs to name a few. After William Hanna's Death in 2001, Hanna Barbera folded into Warner Animation, with Cartoon Network taking control over future projects for television. Joseph Barbera continued on projects for Warner Brothers until his death in 2005. The company now only solely exists as name-in company for marketing properties and copyright purposes, that accompany the Hanna Barbera catalogue. 

Contemporary   Work: Spirited Away  is a cel animated film, released by Studio Ghibli. The film focuses on 10 year old Chihiro and her family, as they are moving house; though they take a wrong turn and enter a magical world - where they see things that are impossible. The film was released in 2001 (production began in early 200) and had a budget of $19 million, while grossing over $330 million. The film won 

What planning did you undertake when preparing to produce your television idents? You should consider such issues as: timescales; pre-production paperwork; storyboarding; timing animation sequences; modification of ideas; institutional research; audience research; animation techniques; generation of ideas (visualisation, characters, backgrounds, storylines, audio, working within technical limitations).I started off the pre-production phase by planning out what target audience I’d aim for, and I decided to aim for the teenage market (16-20), though the third ident was created for my youtube channel so again it was teen orientated while also being what I wanted. I decided the identity I wanted to give the BBC THREE channel was Pacman, as it was something nostalgic and relatable towards the target audience. Even the secondary audience (early to mid adults) would be able to recognise the theme. For my own personal ident I wanted to create a professional and clean ident for my youtube channel, which would be an intro for all my videos in

Queen Mary’s College BTEC Level 3 Extended Diploma in Creative Media Production

the foreseeable future. I believe I achieved this, with a high quality of animation while being only 6 seconds long, a perfect length of time.

These two sketches are of my first of my two pacman idents for BBC Three, the bottom sketch is of all the ghosts separate, before they go onto form into one big king ghost! The second sketch is from of the last frames, as it shows the king ghost with the bbc three logo, so it is obvious that the ident is obviously connected to BBC Three. I believe that the pacman theme is a great theme for the channel…as the target audience (16-20) would all know of pacman and it’s origins. They would also have likely played the game

too.The big ghost ends up being a purple colour, to fit the colour scheme of BBC THREE.

The second animation contains a pacman eating two ghosts, before moving levels to face the ghost, in which he eats (and becomes massive himself) before disappearing after his job is complete. Again the colour of pacman is yellow due to pacman always being yellow – while the ghosts are all purple (BBC THREE connotations) and the background being (BBC THREE again and traditional colour of background for pacman).Below this sketch is a logo of BBC THREE (same ident) that flashes from black to purple, again reminding the audience of who the ident belongs to…as the animation would be shown on all BBC

channels and related youtube channels.

The third ident I made was created after second submission. It was created to use for my own youtube channel. To give a nice professional intro while giving my channel an identity. The colours are of the blue variety as it gender neutral. I

Queen Mary’s College BTEC Level 3 Extended Diploma in Creative Media Production

decided on this colour as the majority of my viewers are Male up to the age of 35, though with a reasonable number of female viewers…Blue was a good choice in my opinion.

Analytics from my Youtube Channel.

If I was to improve I would focus on creating a larger storyline throughout the pacman idents, so viewers would actually want to watch idents and pull in more views for BBC THREE. The channel could even have a web exclusive mini-series, if the idents hit off.

I would also add sound effects to the other pacman ident, to create an even more realistic ident.

I had unfinished the first two idents for first submission, so for second I complete and improved both to a higher quality of standard and created the third…to what I see as my greatest work to date; as considering before this unit I had never used flash before, I feel like I have created 3 professional like animated idents.

How did your test audience respond to your television idents?

Audience member 1 (age 18) Male‘I really like the iconic theme used’‘The sound effects and music fit well’‘The third ident is of high quality’‘The third could be longer’

Audience Member 2 (age 50) Female

Queen Mary’s College BTEC Level 3 Extended Diploma in Creative Media Production

Audience Member 3 (age 17) Female‘I like the chosen theme, and think it is interesting’ ‘I like the sound effects’‘I believe the third ident to be near professional standard’ ‘The third could be longer and the sound effects should be in both pac man’ (idents)

Audience Member 4 (Age 19) Male‘I like the nostalgia of the pacman idents’‘I like the BBC three logo, and when it fades in and out!’‘The colours are vibrant and stand out’‘I would like to see more colour in the last ident; blue is a bit boring!’

After receiving feedback it is clear to me that idents worked, as the target market and even secondary audience appreciated the nostalgic intended theme, the colour scheme and that the bbc three idents and my own YouTube ident were of high quality. I was happy to see they also appreciated the sound effects that really add to the overall effect and likeness to the original pacman game.

REMEMBER: To earn distinction levels for the above criteria, you need to use comprehensive - that is, detailed - examples, that are discussed using subject-specific terminology correctly.