Animation Review

I feel that my final animation succesfully conveys what we were attempting to achieve as it advertises the media department, it uses a variety of media techniques and equiptment, it also has the iconic character morph and two pingu-esc penguins. I also feel that there are faults in my ident as there is some green screen bleeding and in places it is rather jumpy. Overall it has met my expectations for the ident and i am pleased with it but if i had extra time i would go back and improve a few minor things.

We as a group asked our class to answer questions on the ident, our class consisted of 2 females and 12 males all whom are 16 - 18 so the results may not be completely fair. Twelve people in the audience said thta our ident can be improved and i believe if we were to improve we would have to work on how smooth the editing is, how detailed the characters are and try and get the best possible results with the greenscreen footage. 100% of the surveyed audience said that the idents soundtrack is ideal, that it represents the media department well and that they like the storyline and characters.  Most of the people surveyed said the ident was good, a few said the ident was very good and one person said the ident wasnt good at all. Eight people said that this could be the official media ident where six people said this should not.

Questionnaire Answers

Questionnaire Answers

Females:

2

Males:

12

Very Good:

4

Very Rubbish:

1

Good:

9

Soundtrack – Ideal

14

Representation – Well

14

Do you like the ident – Yes

14

Could this be the official media ident – Yes

8

Could this be the official media ident – No

6

Do you like the storyline – Yes

14

Do you watch a lot of animation – Yes

9

Do you watch a lot of animation – No

5

Do you like the characters – Yes

14

Can it be improved – Yes

12

Can it be improved – No

2

Finished Ident

Below is my finished ident for the media department created using power director 9.1

Where we're going

In our media class I am working as part of a group to create a motion idents through the media of stop motion animation for Park Hall Media Department, read more about this here.

Our plan is to make a 10 - 15 second ident using famous characters in the world of stop motion animation and incorporate this in to what the Park Hall Media department is all about. We are showing two penguins which play on the characters from the classic 'Pingu' and we are using the character Morph to film the two penguins watching a film about the media department, for this film we may use a video from the module where we created a group on editing for teenagers, this in turn is safer than using third party footage as this is our own material.

So far we have designed our characters, brainstormed on what our ideas are, researched techniques that we are going to use and now all we have left to do is create our storyboard then we are able to begin filming. We should be filming the ident on wednesday morning.

Jack creating a second penguin



Jacks first Penguin

Jordan creating Morph

Jordans carrot (not being used in ident, uploaded to demonstrate creativity)



Tv Idents in the US, Uk and the rest of Europe

Tv Idents in the US, Uk and the rest of Europe

The UK and Europe

Station idents are normally used in between shows and some are considered the most important portion of a network's presentation. Unlike in the US, broadcast stations in Europe do not identify by callsign, although many European networks brand by their usual channel number. From the 1960s to the early 1990s, most broadcasters used a single ident, sometimes making special variants for special events and holidays. Nowadays, many networks have complete sets of idents based on a central theme or branding element, and most of the time these idents also build the basis for the rest of the appearance of the channel.
In the present day, idents can vary in complexity from a simple static image to a live-action film, or even computer graphics generated on the fly (the idents used by BBC Four from 2002 to 2005 are an example of the latter, its idents reacted to the sound of the announcer's voice and background music and therefore, at each playout, no two idents were ever exactly the same).
Before January 1, 1988, on the ITV network, each programme would be preceded by the ident of the regional company that had made it, and this would be broadcast throughout the network, i.e. by all companies showing the programme. It meant that viewers across the country would see a "Yorkshire Television" logo and hear the corresponding fanfare before Emmerdale Farm and "Scottish Television" idents before Take the High Road. In consequence, most ITV-produced series shown abroad would also be preceded by the producing company's logo - for example, viewers watching Upstairs, Downstairs on PBS would see the logo and fanfare for London Weekend Television before the start of the programme. In 1988 programme-making companies were credited with a briefer caption at the end of the programme instead. Since the consolidation of the ITV network in the early 2000s, the variety of creative and distinct regional identities that made ITV unique in the UK have largely disappeared, UTV and STV being more or less the only notable exceptions.

United States
Television stations are required to identify themselves each hour in the US. The station must identify its main call sign along with the community of license and any other call signs it uses. Translators are required to be identified twice a day, once at about 9 a.m and 3 p.m. local time.

- information gathered from wikipedia

Genres and Forms

Tv Animation

In general tv animation is usually developed for a comedic effect. The 1980s and 1990s was a renaissance of the cartoon series for children and adults. Various broadcast networks and media companies began creating television channels and formats designed specifically for airing cartoon series. Companies that already had these types of formats in place began to revamp their existing models during this time. Most of the animation is directed at children but certain animated programmes are targeted at an older audience such as Family Guy which is targeted at teenagers.

Channel Idents

Some tv channels have animated idents as they appeal more to the channels target audience, usually these channels are aimed at children, such channels like cartoon netowork and ceebeebies use them. Channels that are not aimed at children also use animation in their idents, such as E4 which is aimed at young adults.

Cinema

Even in the cinema there is animation, animated movies to be precise like the ones maybe by Disney or Pixar which are aimed at children. There are also films which use CGI which is a more realistic styled animation and is used in films such as Avatar.

Advertising

Animation is often used in advertisements. The pictures can vary from hand-drawn traditional animation to computer animation. By using animated characters, an advertisement may have a certain appeal that is difficult to achieve with actors or mere product displays. The animation is often combined with real actors.

Music Videos

Animation is also used a lot in music videos. It is used when the song has a story or a certain effect that cannot be given across via human actors. It also may be used when the target audience of the band are the kind of people who like animation such as childen.

Computer Games

Most computer games are animated but there are many styles of animation they try to cover, for example first person shooters are more likely going to go with a realistic style of animation, whilst side scrollers and games targeted at a younger audience are more likely to go with a more cartoony style of animation. Some games mainly focus on the actual gameplay of the game instead of how it looks, whilst other games like flowers focus on the beauty of animation and games are now being considered an art form and are becoming more 'aceptable'. A gallery of computer games through the ages have even displayed as art in the smithsonian museum.

Ident Analysis

Ident/ Channel	Length and format	Type of sound (describe it – diegetic/non-diegetic)	Target audience	Setting/props characters              no. of characters
Pixar Ident	10 seconds	Diegetic sound Squeaks and sound effects	People who want to see a Pixar movie (mainly children between the age of 4 to 12)	The props that appear are the letters P, I, X, A and R which are lined up to make the word Pixar. The only character is a lamp who squishes the I.
DreamWorks Ident	21 seconds	Non-Diegetic sound Mood music	People who want to see a DreamWorks movie (mainly children between the age of 4 and 12)	It is set in a blue sky with white clouds and there is a crescent moon. The only character is a boy with a fishing rod who fly’s up to the moon using balloons which them pop to create the word DreamWorks
BBC 3 ‘Magic Number’ Ident (2003-2008)	14 seconds	Diegetic Sound Music Represented coming from the characters	People who watch BBC 3 (mainly people between the age of 16 and 40)	It is set in a dark room with the word THREE inside it. There are 19 Characters who are around and on the word ‘THREE’ they are all singing the song ‘3 is a magic number’
BBC 1 Ident ‘Hippos’	30 seconds	Non-Diegetic Sound            Mood Music	People who watch BBC 1 (a vast variety of people but mainly from the age 12 to 50)	It is set in an African Lake. There are lots of hippos swimming around underwater, the number of hippos is uncertain. At the end some of the hippos swim in a circle around the BBC One logo.
Ceebeebies Ident         ‘Dance’ (2004)	15 seconds	Non-Diegetic Sound            Mood Music	Children that watch Ceebeebies (aged between 3 and 6)	The Background of the Ident resembles a lava lamp.                 The characters are two yellow blobs that ‘dance’ with each other.
E4 ‘Coloured Block’ Ident	16 Seconds	There are both Diegetic Sounds There are two main sounds, the channel 4 blocks logo smashing and the noises the e4 logo’s make.                And Non-Diegetic Sounds           When the E4 logo’s start jumping around, music starts.	People who watch E4 (usually aged between 13 and 33)	The Background of this Ident is completely black and it starts off like the Old Channel 4 Ident’s with a number 4 made of coloured blocks.               The 4 then falls over and shatters into pieces, the pieces all turn into E4 logos that jump around.
‘The Simpsons’ Sky 1 Ident	28 Seconds	Diegetic Sound  All the sound in the Ident is being made by the characters or objects in it	People who watch Sky 1 (Usually from age 10 to 40)	The setting is in the Simpsons world, it starts off in the Simpsons home, on a street and then a hospital looking place.                    The Characters that are in it are, Lisa, Maggie, Homer, Marge, Bart, Santa’s Little Helper, Itchy and Scratchy.

This is some of the reaserch i have done for my group for a project, the project being we have to create an Ident for the media department at Park Hall Academy. The rest of my group are Gary, Jordan and  Jack.