Ident and Title Sequence Evaluations

Raymond Family Production Ident

I wanted to create an ident that expressed the kind of productions I usually make. After throwing out a few ideas I decided that I wanted to include some real life footage, because I usually make documentaries. I looked into some of my well known idents, such as 'Paramount' and 'A very good production'. I realised whilst researching that most idents have a fan fare or soundtrack that they are recognised by, I then decided to use a short piano piece on my ident to denote that my company was proffesional. I then decided that to finish my piece of I wanted to create something to include, so i started playing around on photoshop. I managed to pick out a tree, and turn it into a silouhette with a sunset behind it. With the company having the word "family" in it, I wanted the tree to resemble a sort of family tree for the audience to connect with.  If I was to create the ident again, I think that I would change the name on the ident to 'Raymond Family House Productions" Because having the 'A' to introduce the production company as it is in the clip, only allows the ident to be placed in front of a movie piece, and I wanted my ident to seem much more diverse.

Tv/Film Ident research

A TV/Film ident usually lasts around 30 seconds, and are considered as short artistic films, used to hook the audience in by appealing to their sight and sound senses. In the 1950's, when the BBC started using idents in between their programs, the ident would be simple, in black and white and last around 5 seconds. However idents have now developed in productions, for example the new channel 4 ident. developed by Rudd Studios in the summer of 2012, is a clever artistic way of keeping the same logo, but looking at it from different angles. The progress of the idents also reflects the way that the channels have grown and developed.

Many of the most memorable and successful logo ident originate from Hollywood, including Warner Brothers - The WB shield, Paramount - Majestic Mountain and 20th Century Fox - The searchlight logo.
A Hollywood logo is always recognisable because it includes a massive landmark or something familiar to the audience. It also sells the idea of stardom and excitement, by including a trademark fanfare and lots of flashing lights and stars. Another factor that differentiates the Hollywood logos from others, is the dominant
camera angles. The main logo is shown from a low point of view, this demonstrates to the audience that the production company are in control, and that viewers should sit back and trust that the film will be good because that prestigious company is involved.
 The dreamworks "boy on the moon" is another Hollywood logo, however this one uses different techniques to hook the audience. Using a small child rather than the more well know myth of "man on the moon" alongside a lullaby soundtrack, encourages audiences of all ages to relate to the child-driven movies that are usually produced by DreamWorks. This logo had also been developed for different movies, for example, at the beginning of each of the 'Shrek' movies, the three little pig characters push the fishing boy off of the moon and take his place. This shows how the logo relates to the films that the company produces.
 When artist Robert Hunt was asked to create the logo, he was told to make it "reminiscent of Hollywood's golden age" by director Steven Spielberg, I think that Spielberg wanted to keep the old Hollywood glamour theme in with the new simple and clean idea. Hunt acheived this with the bold font and small fanfare in the middle of the lullaby sequence, I feel that this ident is really iconic because of the hollywood factors that it captures.

Aardman Animations

 This Aardman film logo was shown at the beginning of each of Aardmans productions including "Wallace and Grommit - the curse of the were-rabbit" and "Project Zoo". It ws also used at the beggining of Aardman sponsored video games such as 'Chicken run'.

 This logo/ident id a personal favourite of mine because it includes aspects of the Hollywood logos, whilst still maintaining an independent theme. The ident lasts for only nine seconds, and shows off a variety of comically simple animation, including trees, a running box man, clockworks, cars, fish and a number of other random objects. I think this shows that Aardman Animations is very diverse and therefore this ident speaks volumes about the company.

 An aspect of the Hollywood logos that this logo/ident carries, is the iconic fanfare used in successful logos such as Paramounts and Columbia pictures, this fanfare adds to the comic book nature of the ident and increases the impact of the logo. Created in 1998, this logo was the second of the Aardman idents, replacing the original one that was created when the company started in 1972. I think that the second ident shows how the company have developed as an animation studio and found a genre of films they excell in creating. this is also shown in the playfullness of the 1998 logo, compared to the slightly creepy and dark animations featured in the original logo.

 Thames Television

This is the Thames Television ident from 1976, it features many iconic landmarks from London, including St Paul's cathedral and London bridge.
 Thames television started as a licensee for the ITV and it predominantly covered the area of London and the surrounding counties.
 Thames was involved in creating television shows that were broadcasted around the nation but were mainly in charge of the TV that created the local network.
This ident is a re-design of the 1969 Thames ident, adjusted only slightly to remove the rippling water reflection that viewers felt was slightly scary. I think that Thames removed the 'Scary' aspect of their ident because they wanted to be seen as a professional, serious and enjoyable for everyone.  The soundtrack to this ident logo is a creation by musician Johnny Dankworth called 'The Thames theme' and is very British sounding, for example it is similar to the soundtrack that was used previously for the BBC news.
 The font used matches the professional approach that the visual enforces, using a bold and simple typeface really enhances the overall feeling of the ident. I personally do not like this ident because I feel it is typically dated with the bad qaulity footage.

Dexter Opening Sequence

'Dexter' is a television series that was first aired on the Showtime network on October 1st 2006. Developed by James Manos Jnr, 'Dexter' is now on its sixth season.
 The title sequence for "Dexter" was created in part by creative director Eric Anderson. In an interview for Artofthetitle.com, Anderson said "We then started examining normal everyday things that could be seen as horrific...". I think that this quote sums up the basis of the entire title sequence. Throughout the sequence, we watch as Dexter gets ready for day, however the things he does coupled with the splatters of blood, quick cuts, dominant angles and slightly ominous music, makes the whole thing seem a little more threatening. Although there is no directed reference to the actual TV series, apart from including the main character, the aesthetics of the room he is in create the feeling of a crime scene. This crime scene relates to Dexter’s job of a crime scene detective/serial killer.

" Its Nice That" - Ski Slope Documentary Evaluation

At the start of this project we were given a brief. Included in this brief was the link to the infamous blog "Its Nice That" and we were asked to chose a piece of work that had been featured on the site that would  inspire us to create our own piece of work. I chose to use a small trailer for a film called "Colony" because it inspired me to create something that I was passionate about and wanted to share with an audience.

 From the start I was very sure that I wanted to create a documentary, to mirror the concept of 'Colony' but with a subject that was personal to me. I first thought about the things that were important to me, for example, my family; friends;snowboarding;pets;work etc. and after planning out a few ideas I realised that I could combine many of the personal aspects of my life together in one.
 I work at the Plymouth Ski Slope, which is in dire need of repair. The slope means alot to me and my friends and without it I would not be able to continue working and snowboarding. This brought me to the idea of an advert (much like the 'trailer' form of 'Colony') for the Ski Slope, asking the viewers to support it and visit to help raise some repair money.
 I started to look at some appeal adverts, such as the 'wateraid' adverts asking for donations. Although I found these helpful to get some techniques on appealing to the audience, I felt that they were too heart-rendering to take too much inspiration from as I wanted my advert to be slightly upbeat.
 I drew out a basic storyboard for the ad, and tried to include many parts of the slope that needed repair as well as the costumers and instructors having fun to show audiences why and who they needed help. I also wrote out a risk assessment because of the dangerous nature of snowboarding and skiing, I was considerate of the risk of having equipment out on the actual slope alongside people having lessons.
 I filmed the footage on an A1 camera, and used a tripod for most of the shots. I also decided to use a mini MuviGumBall camera to capture some onboard footage from some more advanced skiiers. It took around 3 days to take all of the footage as there was some issues with light and glare from the floodlights around the slope. I countered this problem by checking the sunset times to ensure I had plenty of time to film in the day.
 I uploaded the footage onto a computer, ready to start the edit. Unfortunately due to an error by a previous user, the camera had dirt inside of it and most of my footage hadn't been captured correctly. This meant that I was left with a small percentage of the footage I had filmed and had to create an ad using the remaining things I had left.
 I was able to create a fairly decent ad, and I feel like I conveyed the need of the slope and appealed to the audience. However I was dissapointed that piece wasnt as good as it could have been, I would have like to include the small interviews with instructors to convey the feeling of an appeal. I think that the lack of this personal insight restricted the connection that the audience made with the piece.
 If I could have used all of the footage I had captured, I feel that the ad would have been much more successful, due to lack of time however I was unable to re-shoot the footage that was lost.

"Its Nice That' Planning and Pre-production

Treatment - Plymouth Ski Slope documentary
We open on a low shot, the side of a dry ski slope is visible, and a skier is slowing coming towards the camera on a lift. The words "A Portrait" appear in bold white writing, close to the skiers feet. Emotive music starts as the words fade and the skier moves out of frame.
 We then move to a time lapse of multiple skiers moving up the lift, and exiting onto a fully visible ski slope. They move in a comic way as they wait for their friends to re-group, they then move off onto the slope and disappear from view. More skiers replace them, the slope is fairly busy. We can also see lots of grass, and untidy work equipment on the each side of the slope, the feeling is run-down.
 As the music picks up, we then start to see other parts of the ski slope area, the shots move in time to the music in a rhythm. We see part of the beginners slope, and a sign that proclaims 'Skiers and Snowboarders only beyond this point" This is a learner slope. We see a tyre left lying on the slope, this enforces a feeling of run-down and not looked after. The shot changes so a sign for "the cresta run" comes into view, and we see a bin and an old shed with broken equipment in it. We move back to the low shot of the lift, this time with no one on it, the matting is worn and mossy. A close up view of the "end of run" sign is shown, the writing is fading and the sign is torn. The music becomes more upbeat and we see a pair of ski's moving, a close up of a snow-boarder sorting out his shoes and board. As the music gets even faster we swap to a shot of some freestyle snowboarding, groups of people playing around with ramps and rails. We see one is an instructor, and the shot switches to multiple shots of instructors completing daily tasks such as changing into uniform, completing level cards and checking the diary for lesson times. As the music slows down again, we watch as people par-take in lessons with instructors on what appears to be a zigzag path and also the main slope. The shot then moves inside to the 'lodge'. We see instructors again, showing the costumers how to set up ski's, they laugh and joke with the young children. The music slows and fades, we listen as the instructors speak to each other and the camera about how the slope needs help. "less people with money to spend on hobbies" and "slope needs upkeep" are some sentences that are worded. We then see costumers, talking about the brilliant qaulity of the instructors and about how the slope needs to promote more to encourage people up.
  The music then picks up again and we see more costumers having lessons and using the slope, some are well practiced and some need more help. As the pace of the music quickens the shot moves again to freestyle and we see instructors showing people how to use the rails.
 We then see a final long shot of the main lodge, and the view from the high parts of the slope. In bold white writing we see the words "Help support your local ski slope in 2012" the music and words fade out together and the scene ends.

Risk Assesment

Risk - Snowboarders could fall and hit the camera and risk possible injury to themselves and also damage equipment and injure crew members.
Likelyhood - Is possible but unlikely as sportsmen feature are of advanced levels and in control.
Prevention of risk - Ensure all particpants know where the cameras are, and reduce risk of a crash by keeping cameras an appropriate distance away from freestyle features and lessons.

Risk - Sport is exhausting, participants could risk overheating and fainting.
Likelyhood - Participants are usually aware of how much fluid they need to consume.
Prevention of risk - Make sure that water is readily available and breaks are taken regularly.

Risk - Filming outside could pose a potential risk because of changeable weather. Equipment could get wet or overheat.
Likelyhood - Possible put easily prevented.
Prevention of risk - check weather on the day of filming, take appropriate covers. Allow time for the camera to be switched off and put away at points during the day to prevent overheating in a hot sun.

Risk - Filming takes place in a situation where children are present. Parents might not be comfortable with their children being filmed.
Likelyhood - Very likely
Prevention of Risk - Check before hand which parents would be ok with their children being filmed, ask them to sign a consent form. If not, blur the childrens faces out or do not include them in the filming of scenes.

"Its Nice That"

"Its Nice That has one main mission in life - to champion great creativity" is the first sentence that a viewer would read on the 'about' page on itsnicethat.com. Founded in April 2007 by Will Hudson, "Its Nice That' is a worldwide blog and magazine that features creative pieces of work from artists and filmakers from everywhere and anywhere. Hudson first created the blog as "a platform for him to record and document his love of the creative industry..." and I think that even at a quick glance of the quantity of high standard work featured on the website, it is easy to tell that director Hudson is very involved and passionate about the arts. He was joined the following year by Alex Bec, a friend who he had already established successful blog 'if you could' with. Bec reinforced Hudson's love to explore the independant arts and helped to promote "Its Nice That" turning it into a global platform.
 We were asked to find a video or piece of work that inspired us to create our own "Its Nice That" piece, and develop our ideas into a short video that was creative. After watching an exensive amount of videos, and looking at multiple works, I came across a trailer for a movie that had been posted assistant online editor Bryony Quinn - http://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/colony. The feature film 'Colony' documents the lives of bee keepers in America. The focus of the film is on the Seppi Family, and shows their way of life with the bees, and how when the 80 million Bees disappeared, their whole lifestyle did too.  Out of all of the art peices, I liked this one and it stood out to me because of it's hard hitting and very personal content.

Video Takeaway Evaluation

"Video takeaway" was a new concept to me. I had not previously heard of a project that was as artistic and unusual as this one. The basic idea was to create a short piece to be shown in takeaways across Plymouth designed to fit the "context of the host takeaways".  We were given a brief that was inspired by this project and asked to create our own version of a video takeaway.
 After looking at the brief I immediately decided that to create a piece that would suit the project, I needed to be creative. It was specified in the brief that the piece should ideally be short and silent but still hold the viewers attention whilst they waited for their food, so I started to plan out some idea's that could be relevant.

 My first idea was to use a variety of still images depicting different foods that could have been served in the various takeaways, I wanted to feature these images all cut up into pieces to provoke thoughts from the viewers and therefore "allowing them to create their own meaning" - Hillary Lawson. The pieces would appear slowly on the screen in a random pattern and encourage the viewers to guess what the item of food was, it would not always be the obvious answer and provide an entertaining wait.

 This idea however seemed too complicated to produce with the issue of trying to make some food resemble others and also seemed like it could be a little bit tedious to show to the adult audience as the concept was more a child's game. Instead I decided to explore other ways of presenting food. I had previously completed a pixilation (stop-motion) project and so started to experiment with different movements in a comic way.

 I decided that instead of being a random collection of food moving, I would try to tell a short story. I wanted to use a Chinese theme because I think that a Chinese is what comes to peoples minds when you say "takeaway".

 I drew out a storyboard that included noodles because I felt that this was a traditional Chinese food. The storyboard shows the journey of a "noodle cruise" which sets sail into a sea of knives and forks, it crashes into a plastic cup ice-berg and sinks, losing its noodles and oars. I think that this was a good idea and it fit the brief because it was comic, short and needed no sound for narration.

Come to ours description of the real video takeaway - http://cto.independentplymouth.info/video-takeaway

"Come to Ours" - Video Takeaway

Video takeaway was a project devised by a group of independent artist called "come to ours". It was aimed to make use of the city's spaces and appeal to customers and staff at takeaways. 'Come to ours' chose two of their favourite takeouts in Plymouth and on two existing TV screens, presented an array of short films and animations from independent and student filmmakers from around the world.

 A short brief was posted by the artists collection on criticalnetwork.co.uk, detailing how the short film work should appear, and what specifics needed to be included. It also outlines details on how to post the video to 'come to ours' vimeo page.

 Some of the specifics include that the film must be filmed in a 4:3 format, and be silent. They also stated that the piece should be "made for the specific context of a TV monitor in a takeaway (or existing works that would be interesting to be seen in this context)". The only piece of advice the collective gave was to try and limit the amount of time the piece runs for, as a longer piece might become less interesting than quick, snappy works.

 I think this brief was perfect for what 'come to ours' were trying to achieve because it outlined the exact audience they wanted to target, and also let the filmmakers know clearly what the expected. These elements all constitute a good brief.

Video painting is a form of expressive video art, a relatively new concept that is now being showcased in galleries around the world. The concept is to present footage on a LCD screen or projected onto a wall, framed like a real painting.

 In 2001, a philosopher named Hillary Lawson played around with the idea of footage. A documentary filmaker himself, Lawson wanted to explore the idea of film having no real meaning and so set up a motionless camera so as not to introduce meaning, and left it rolling for a few minutes. After looking at the footage he decided that he was captivated by the idea and spent the next few years exloring the idea further.

 "A video painting constitutes a motionless image, with no dialouge and no sound, and allows each viewer to create their own meaning, rather than a meaning that has been played out to them".

ED Ident Evaluation

At the beginning of this project I was unaware of the work and planning that went into creating the perfect ident for TV channels and other similar projects. It was interesting to be introduced to idents for the first time, having not previously had experience creating them, and I was excited to start a new challenge.
 We started to do research on the different types of ident, such as the BBC's old and new creations by Martin Lambie-Nairn, and also other TV channels such as E4 and Channel 4. We looked into the reasons behind the styling of each ident, and how the colour, soundtrack, movement represented the channel it was advertising. We also looked into the cost of producing an ident, and further into how Lambie-Nairn changed the BBC ident from italic to straight boxes to save almost 1/3 of the cost each year.

 When we were given the brief to create an ident for our ND television and film course to encourage school leavers to apply for a place at PCA, we had to plan what we wanted our ident to advertise about the course. Working together with Tash, we decided that the main aspect of the course that appealed to us when we first applied was that the course wasn't just for people who already knew everything about cameras and film, but for people who wanted to learn those things as the course progressed. So we started to look into various existing course ident such as the popular animation ident for a year 1 course in Birmingham that was circulated on youtube.com. We didnt get much in the form of inspiration from our search so we started to list all of the pro's of the course. Eventually we came to the decision that we wanted to include everyone from the group in the ident, to enhance the feeling of "Everyone is welcome" and set about creating a storyboard.    

 At first we wanted to have each person say one word about the course, but as we realised that this might not make sense, we changed the idea. Instead we decided on a pre-written paragraph that was created with the help of some words chosen by members of the class, read out by a few people at a time and filmed in different parts of the college. We wanted to paragraph to be short and snappy, but grab peoples attention at the same time, so we decided on a few short words such as "creative" and "imaginative" and then go more in depth about who we are as people and why we enjoy the course. After giving our pitch to Tim, he asked us some questions and challenged us to think about why we had chosen to present the course like we did. He also gave us some advice on who should say what and where we should place them to give maximum effect.

 During filming we changed some of our plans last minute because we came across a few problems with sound being recorded and timing with a few groups, to counter the problems we simply got the groups to practice counting to three and then saying the words together. It took around an hour to film all of the Ident, I think this is a relatively short production time but because the idea was so simple, it didnt take very long for us to get a few takes of each part. When we started to edit we realised that we should have left a few seconds on either side of the speaking, to ensure we could have edited each piece together easily. Because of this the editing is a little jumpy and not as smooth as we wanted it to be.

 If I was to re-film this ident I would leave enough time to edit and also would have tried to include more people from the group in the ident. Overall I really enjoyed learning about the work that goes into idents, and feel that our ED Ident really expressed the course well, and showed what we had learnt from the research that we had looked at.