Ident Feedback

I presented my ident to my target audience, and asked their opinion immediately after viewing. The following video shows their responses:



The following points have been stated that are what I was aiming for

• Quirky
• Fitting the target audience
• A sense of retro, for the nintendo 64 generation.

The points raised about the length of time it takes for the logo to appear and the guitar strum are ones I can now go and improve on, to see if the audience prefers it.

Ident

Following up on yesterday's post, here is my ident fully animated but without receiving audience feedback - which is my next task.

Ident Development

I've began the process of producing my ident sequence. The one I've chosen is the clip featuring the ringed city, and I've chosen to animate it in Flash.

A key part I wanted to get done was animating the ring that goes around the city (and moon). I completed this using photoshop, flash and the various masking tools within them. Below are some screenshots explaining how I did this:

The green section shows the mask. This essentially acts like a window - anything outside the coloured band will be hidden from view - producing the ringed shape.

Exported from photoshop, a version of the ring that has no fill - however it still has the effects overlayed (the translucent white band you see in the center). This is put over the mask which is what gives it the same look as the non-animated version.

 Finally, by working together and rotating the gradient behind them on a loop it will produce the effect that the light is beaming round and round - you can see the final product below:

Ident Animatics

I've begun the task of planning my ident sequence. I've come up with a range of ideas, all based upon the signifier of the orbital ring present on my logo. The idea is that it shows a person is switched on and engaged about my channel and it's content.

At first I thought they should all be in one sequence, however research indicated that most of the time they are around 15-30 seconds rather than a full minute. As such I split my ideas into seperate ones, and will attempt one or more of them individually.

As of yet I am unsure of the style of the idents, I am considering live-action with animated portions (the ring super imposed on top), however 3D and Flash are considerations too.

Here is the Animatic Reel of my ideas:

Idents

The definition of an ident is the following:

Idents - Station identification is the practice of radio or television stations or networks identifying themselves on air, typically by means of a call sign or brand name (sometimes known, particularly in the United States, as a "sounder" or "stinger", more generally as a station or network ident).

As part of my production involves one, I have been researching into examples of ones I would like to take inspiration from. I've found the following examples of ones I think fit the ideas of where I'd like my Channel's theme to go:

DR2


I think the audience for such an ident is going to be male, and an older male audience at that. The slow plodding music gives it a humorous feel but compared to a channel aimed at the youth market, they are a very slow paced ident. Similarly the quirky contraptions may not suit the brash and loud humour of the stereotypical youth and may reflect a more intellectual audience. The style is very simple and one I think I could mimic, a coloured background and a panning camera would be easy to accomplish, and the quirky contraptions would reflect the techy / gadgety audience that I am aiming at.
Dulux


Although not strictly an ident, this Dulux advert's style, use of music and camera techniques are great examples of things to use for my own ident. The mise-en-scene within it, typically schools, kitchens, dark corridors and car parks reflects a family target audience of Mum and Dad. The music by Jonsi, lead singer of Sigur Ros an icelandic alternative band, could be argued to be more aimed at the female audience on a stereotypical level. The use of time-lapse gives it a sweeping sense of rapid change. I could easily emulate this with the right software however the nature of a timelapse means that an enormous amount of time would need to be spent to gain a short amount of footage, this may prove impractical.
SBS


Fresh colours and a gentle piano melody gives to me infers a female target audience. The simple shapes and colours coupled with this music suggests an older audience too, a younger one would have a far more loud and vibrant ident with heavy music and in your face colours. I don't think it would suit the target audience of my channel - however the technique of vector animation and simple shapes could be emulated easily to fit.
Fiver


A good comparison to SBS, using a similar technique of simple shapes and colour an entirely different feel has been acheived by the dark background and more overt music. The way the shapes merge and form into the various genres the channel broadcasts is a clever way of implanting it in the audiences mind. Particular references like the unzip, and the computer terminal flashing cursor at the end lead me to believe it is a male young audience. Cliché terminal looks and such I am keen to avoid to prevent my channel being too far down the track of geek to warrant a large audience but the method of animation is one I can replicate.

All of these demonstrate similar conventions. Primarily a clearly defined logo visible either at the beginning, the end of all the way through. They are also all within the length of about 30-45 seconds (excluding the advert) and contain very little on screen. The music employed is typically simple with no vocals and contains no introduction or climax, essentially being nothing more than a melody rather than a song.