critical study

My Aim for this project was to make a lively bouncy Ident for E4. An I dent that is eye catching, keeps the audiences attention and attracts the to the E4 channel.

The reason that I chose to create an Ident for E4 is because it is a live brief and E4 have an E-sting competition in which I intend to enter my animation/s




Whilst looking at the previous E4 Ident enteries I found the E4 website usefull as you can see the ratings for the animations given by the auidence. This gave me a good idea of what to include and not include in my E4 Ident. These are a small number of intesesting Idents for E4 but personally I feel that all of them are lacking in some way. This first E4 Ident shows a journey of the E4 logo as it floats above a farm land, ok it is artistic but I feel that this Ident lacks in imagination, we want to sho that E4 is lively, interesting and fun to watch, I feel that this animation does not show this, instead of having the E4 logo floating above the land, it could have interacted with the live action and maybe having a little charater to the logo itself. Whilst doing this project I found that having a theme is so important, having a theme gives you a direction in which to go with your project and a starting point. To me this Ident doesn't really have a theme, it is a typical spring/sumers day, with flowers, fields and animals, the only difference is that there are E4's logo floating above them. I want to get a reaction from the audience with my animations because if they react to it the audience will remember it.


This is an E4 Ident that I have seen on television, the rating on this one is 50 percent, so the audience like this one more than the previous Ident and I can see why; this Ident has a theme - "comedy". It has imagination and although it is a little silly it has a lively and funny appraoch, the lively music also enhances the Ident and will atract them to the E4 channel. This animation has been nger population to this made to fit with the target audience, the typical slob who lives in his flat opens his fridge to find an E4 monster eating his food and to rub this in he burps as the guy opens it. I think that this I dent is unpredictable and is what the audience want, something that will suprise them, I have used this in my animation having the story change direction, at first my rooster is big and bold but suddenly he becomes fragile and not so big and bold. In this Idents case the story changes from normality to a bizzar piece, I think that the audience like that contrast and it is this that gives them a reaction. In this case the reaction that the Ident is trying to get is laughter, I think that it does achieve this but not as much as we want, perhaps this normal world isn't quite what the audience want as we find out on the next E4 Ident.


Now this is a bizar Ident for E4, but has quite a good rating from the audience, to me this Ident lacks a little in quality, but at the same time it suits the style of animation. The animating is not very good at all, it has little movement only the rabbit that jumps to the E4 logo and begins to lick it. I think that it is the story that the audience have based the ratings on and the bouncy style, it's a quick lively animation that is straight to the point which is what E4 want. This Ident is quite eye catching as it has use of bright colours, I have used this approach in one of my Idents, having the sky being the E4 purple and the orange sun to compliment the purple. I have tried to stick to a limited colour palette as I didn't want too much distractions going on in my animations.



Again the rating has got a little higher so this gives me a good idea of what people want to see in an E4 Ident. This animation has a more straight forward storyboard, beginning with a group of pigeons sitting on telephone cables above a house, then having eye to eye contact with a guy in a sports car, knowing how much this guy must love his car; the pigeons decide to do their business on his front window. This Ident is a little supprising and I gather that the audience also like the odd sillyness and also the idea of revenge or spite even. I personally feel that this Ident would look better in 3D as it looks a little flat, or even some collage of materials to give it that added depth. This would give it a more unique style and quality to it. So looking at the highest rated Idents for E4 I have found that the most popular Idents are lively, humourus, un-predictable, have use of characters and mainly animals. In my animation I have used all of these, in terms of making a good Ident to promote the channel E4 and show off it's qualities, I have chosen the theme comedy, by using the theme comedy I came up with a lively storyboard using a rooster and hens. The story of my Idents are un-predictable and I hope to achieve a good response from the audience.





This is another example of a contrast within a character, at first the charcter (puss in boots) appears to be confident, aggresive and bold, but then in the same scene he begins to choke and shrinks to the ground; now being fragile and the complete opposite of a confident character. I have used this approach in my Ident where my main character changes in appearance, at first he is confident, bold and masculine, but then chokes as he begins his main role in the animation and the story and character changes to humourus; the rooster then becomes fragile and again the opposite of confident. Puss in boots appears aggresive at first but as we get to know his character we find that he is actually quite gentle; my rooster at first will appear a "lady's man" but then we soon find that he is clumsy but with an innosence about him as he doesn't mean to do wrong but always managed to fail and messes things up. The body posture is important of the character as it is this and the face expressions that give the characters their personality. To show the confidence of Puss in boots, his body posture is up right as he makes himself look as big as he can. In my Ident I have exaggerated on the size of his chest, having him top heavy to look bold and masculine, when he begins to choke his body structure changes; his body and tail bend to the ground.





For the form and texture of my characters I have looked at chicken run, this is a popular animation loved by an audience of all ages. It is also unisex so fits perfectly with in my target audience for E4. Although this is a stop motion animation; this is a great reference for me as I can use this when I sculpt my maquette of my models and also when I come to modelling in Maya. The problem that I had when I was designing my rooster was that I wanted his wings to have the use of hands, at first I began looking at the way they have made their arms and my roosters arms were too human like, in Chicken run the characters are built with the axis of a human and there for their human like feature's fit with the style but with my rooster I have designed him looking more like a rooster but with the character of a human. I used more wing like arms, having it so his fingers are more like feathers but with the use of fingers. As well as inspiration from the charcters, I also used a simular form for my hens huts, I have used a "cartoon" style of texture having the wood looking soft, whereas in Chicken run the textures are more realistic.

texturing my hens

As I made my hens adding the texture to the form of the model, using a realistic style of texture will not work well with the style. I made a test piece to see how it would look but as I thought it did not work. I used the 3D paint tool and painted the feathers on the unwrapped mesh. If I were to keep to this style and take out the textured area's on my characters, I would add a bump map adding definintion so that it doesn't look so flat.



This is one of my hens, I have added a shader as I didn't want to add any more actual texture to it, I quite like this and it will be easier to makethe blend shapes as Iwont get any distortion on the skin.




I took away the textured area's to test how my hen will look if I add texture to the skin. I then added a bump map to see how it looks. Although I think this works quite well, I feel that it doesn't suit the style of my animation as much as my original design.



I then put the two together and just added an ambient light to test how well there textures look.

review on Up

Plot-

This was quite an emotional film, it begins by showing us the lives of Ellie and Carl who fall in love. For 70 years they have a dream to go and visit a lost land in South America. 70 years later they still have not been to there desired place and Ellie the love of Carl's life dies. We see an empty chair as Carl sits alone in his quiet house of 70 years. As he walks outside to check his mailbox we see a contrast in his house and the surroundings as his little house sits in the middle of a huge building site. A young boy a wilderness explorer knocks on Carl's house and asks of his help to be able to assist the elderly, Carl refuses closing the door. Being forced out of his home by the builders and being put into an old people's home Carl makes an attempt to escape by attaching millions of balloons to his house and floating away. Carl is now resting on his arm chair still with his beloved wife's chair beside his as he sits in piece and quiet... until he hears a knock on the door, onfused by this he goes to check the noise out and discovers that he isn't alone after all. Russel the little boy was hiding on his porch and after shutting the door on him again Carl begins to feel sorry for Russel and decides to let him in. Through a storm the house becomes a bit of a wreck but Carl tries to stop the things braking to the floor as they fall so he catches the precious objects such as Ellie's photograph. Finally the house comes to a stop as they discover a dark and sinister world, not being able to move any more Carl and Russel begin to pull the house as it floats above them. As they walk they soon discover a tlking dog that is actually the pet of a hunter looking for a certain rare bird. Following Carl and the little boy the dog is loved by Russel but not so much by Carl. They soon come across the rare bird that the hunter is looking for and Russle name's the bird Kevin. Carl soon becomes aware that they are walking along the territories of the lost land of South America as he looks at a picture that Ellie
made of their house on the top of a waterfall. Looking at the waterfall in the far distance Carl and the others make their way for the waterfall. But the hunter has his other dogs on watch for the dog and discover that he has found the bird. Carl and Russle come into contact with the hunter and Carl and Ellie's idol but as he realizes that the hunter is after the bird he becomes defensive and tries to get away, but the hunter has his dogs on the case and soon captures Kevin. Once Carl reaches the waterfall he looks at a book that Ellie left to Carl about the things that she had done, thinking that Ellie had left the pages blank and that she had not done anything with her life he soon finds that she has as she has placed photographs of her life showing that she has been happy. He then decides that he has to help kevin and to make life easier he gets rid of his belongings making the house lighter and makes his way to help Kevin. They manage to rescue Kevin letting her go back to her babies. The film ends by showing Russel being giving his award for helping the aged and Carl is the person who gives it to him. We then see various photo's of Carl and Russel as they share their lives together and have fun times.

What keeps the audience's attention?

The audience are kept engaged by the emotional journey of Carl a 70 year old man. We see his life change from good to bad to worse as he loses his wife and is being forced out of his own home where he has spent his life with his beloved wife. From the beginning of the film the animation is emotional and we want to see Carl have a positive side to his life.

Reaction from an audience-

I felt emotion whilst watching this animation, not only sorrow for the old guy for loosing his wife but aslo the fact that this does happen in day to day life; the fact that we loose the people we love and hope that they get the best out of life. In this case Ellie, Carls wife dies but at first we think that she has not lived her life to her expectations and we feel guilt, but then at the end as he reveals the rest of the pages in Ellie's diary we find that she has enjoyed her life with Carl although she never had the chance to experience her dream. We then feel happier at this and then as we are shown the photographs showing Carls life as he spends it with the young boy, we then feel happy for Carl and Russel. Parts of this animation are funny as we see an eldery man trying to relate to a young boy, of course there is a contrast but at the end we see that they get along well and become more of a family rather than friends.

review on MTV Ident

The MTV Ident starts by showing the audience a dark underground view of a building, as the camera follows the forming black lines that appear from a flickering begin forming across the ground of a shadowed world, then working their way up the outside of the buildings in a city, this is quite sinister as the lines begin to form words such as "dark", "fear", "pain" and "hell". As the sun comes out the style of the Ident changes and we see quite a contrast from that dark and sinister world that now becomes a bright and colorful one. The lines are now various bright colours reflecting the next word "rainbow" and as the camera follows the lines still forming up the buildings; they begin to spell out positive words such as "light", "happy" and "love". At the end of the animation the lines run up a tall building and join forming the MTV logo.

The audience are kept engaged in the animation by the constant flow and morphing imagery, the way that the lines create random words wants us to know what this animation is about and what the words are reflecting. The Ident is aimed at a wide audience as the colours are unisex and the changing of style from dark to bright will attract the "gothic" and the bouncy kind of people. The animation uses live action with CG animation and at first the lines are made to kind of blend in with the buildings but as the colours change there is quite a contrast with the buildings and wording, the words/lines stand out from the buildings. The words are used to reflect the feelings of MTV and this is what MTV is full of as they all form into the logo.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O01E2IIhLmM

review on channel 4 Idents

Channel 4 are well known for their use of puzzle affects on their Idents; such as floating crates in the air in the shape of the channel 4 logo. Most of the Idents are similar in the way that they use the camera, as though it is a car driving past a scenery, the scenery differs from hay bales floating above fields to buildings being positioned in the shape of the channel 4 logo; only when the camera pans the camera pans past the scenery at a certain angle do we see the channel 4 logo and only for a quick glimpse, then once the camera has past the scenery we see again that there are depth between the buildings/hay bales etc. These Idents are made from live action and CG animation. The scenery's that are used vary from a rough estate to a view of the country side or a city. I quite like the sci-fi effect Ident where the objects that make the channel 4 logo move in a space ship way and along with the alien styled music it adds to the sci-fi approach. I also like the way that they have used shadows to create the channel 4 logo; having the bushes coming to life whilst people are playing a game of bowls, ending with showing the shadows of the bushes to create the logo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CVdllN67OQ

This channel 4 Ident is quite different in the way that they have used the camera and the channel 4 logo, still the logo is made of floating objects but this time the logo is already formed and only alters a little at the end when it turns into some kind of pigeon trap then forms back to the shape of the channel 4 logo. The style is very similar to the other Idents but this time it has been used in a different and darker way. The channel 4 logo is used as a monument and is a place where pigeons gather, it starts by showing a close up of the pigeons then shows the audience a view of the monument being the channel 4 logo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwEocD2_d9U&feature=related


The channel 4 Idents are aimed at a broad audience and different countries and ages so the Idents are all different to suit a certain audience. The Idents use different parts of the world in their animations such as Dubai, a rocky island and Tokyo. Different themes are used also to attract the audience such as a fun fair would attract a younger audience, a


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R94X1M7r1SU&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbZ505w3U_k&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGniDcglBHM&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSf-9zjhS6w&feature=related

review on E4 E-sting

This is an Ident for E4, they have used a bird to attract the audiences attention by showing him running on the screen and discovering a button on the ground. I like the way that they have used the character; having an affect on the way that they have shown the E4 logo i.e popping out an E4 egg. I am using a similar approach in my E4 Ident using hens and a rooster, I have used an egg also to use to show the E4 logo but the affects of the egg once it has been cracked i.e using the E4 to create the egg yolk. The bird is a simple design and also has use of simple movements as it bounces in a bird like way whereas in my animation I will have the characters walking in a human like way. The I dent has a limited use of colour, using cream and purple; which makes the purple stand out. I need to keep this in mind and not have too many colour in my animation, it needs to be recognizable as E4.

review on honda advertisement

This is a popular advertisement that catches peoples attention by the domino effect they create by using car parts. Most of the advertisement uses the sound effects of the moving objects, at the end the music begins as the CD player is switched on during the domino process with a voice over reflecting the message to the advertisement showing that the Honda is a reliable car. This has been cleverly thought about; the way they have created motion, they have thought it through the way that the objects move and also the reaction it would give to other objects once they have been approached by the moving object for example the car seats being pulled backwards hitting the window wiper, making it spin around then knocking another object over using the window wipers. I think that the flow of moving objects is realistic apart from the tires rolling up the ramp I personally feel that the tires would need to be going at a faster pace to be rolling up it. The advertisement uses all kinds of objects such as wheels, windows, exhaust down to the smallest objects used on the car like screws n bolts etc. Whilst most of the advertisement is showing a working process using a constant flow the advertisement ends showing the results of all of the objects and also the conclusion to the flow showing that everything on the car works, along with the quote explaining this to the audience "isn't it just amazing when everything works".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5m6EtN5sbM

modelling my rooster in Maya

my three hens

hen 1



hen 2



hen 3

maquette of one of my hens

This is my maquette for one of my hens. I am going to make the heads of the other two as their body shape will be very similar. As I have given my rooster a big chest I want the opposite for my hens giving them wider hips looking more feminine. On Maya I will apply a thin line of eye lashes adding to the feminine approach. Her beak is slimmer than the roosters. I will not bake this maquette until I has recieved feedback on the design and form as there maybe changes yet to make; such as the wings, I may add texture to these or alter the form a little. I am satisfied by the front view of my hen but am not so sure about the side view, I think i need to have the eye's maybe sunken in a little as her eye's stick out too much.