Digital Media Design: D&AD
For this project I chose to do the E4 Monday Night Movie Ident, this requires a 30 second ident and one 5 second sting.
Brief:
Create a TV promo for E4 publicising their Monday Night Movie Strand.
Target Audience:
E4’s audience are young and savvy.They come to E4 for a good dose of escapist entertainment. Some of it is brand defining, high quality and innovative – shows like DeadSet, Skins and The Inbetweeners,whilst some of it is good fodder for when you want to chill out – a classic episode of Friends anyone? E4’s viewers have a strong relationship withthe channel but increasingly spendtheir time media stacking – watchingTV whilst texting, or hanging outon social networks. It is harder and harder to getviewers’ attention…
Sources of inspiration
I've watched some of the current E4 movie night idents on TV and have noticed that E4 in general has a recurring theme. It usually has wacky, obscure humour that is targeted at teenagers, 16-30. The outrageous british voice sums up how bizarre and comical the channel really is. Below are two E4 ads that use odd but also witty content.
The current E4 Movie Night ident uses a very cartoony style yet also looks like a design for a tshirt. It is exaggerated and entertaining to watch, I feel that is what E4 is all about wacky, new but overall just fun to watch. The first animations I picked out are from a website that is primarily for flash artists called Newgrounds.
The first animation is from an artist called Chulaid/Adam Philips. Below is one of his most recent animations and also the process of how it makes them. I really like this style of animation, primarily frame-by-frame with effects including blurs, lights etc.
This video shows a brief overview of how he animates, using a basic storyboard to animate from and then create the artwork over the top. This is a time consuming way of animating however if done properly can achieve a really nice art style.
Another animator from Newgrounds, is Egoraptor. He is incredibly popular for his simplistic, over-exaggerated animations, with a mixture of tweens and frame-by-frame it is a simple graphic approach to animating.
I also found animations on a site called Aniboom.com, much like Newgrounds, however also has a lot of 3d animated submissions. Here are a couple of animations that caught my attention using different styles and techniques. Below is animation that is similar to the newgrounds animation only this has a more cut-out style. Using vector shapes, it looks like its made up in illustrator, it gives a really clean cut graphic style and really works well animated. It also has what looks like textures used for the clouds however which looks a little separate from the style however seems to work well in the animation.
Watch more cool animation and creative cartoons at Aniboom
This animation also has a similar style although uses more gradients. It again also seems to use a small amount of textures, the graphic style with added textures, much like the one above. Overall a really nice animation to watch, the music also helps navigate through the animation using a slow tempo song that has an almost underwater feel and matches the theme. Implementing music is something I wish to do within my animation. For the E4 animation the music would be a little more upbeat and also a little quirky.
Trichrome Blue from Lois van Baarle on Vimeo.
This animation uses a hand-drawn style of animating with a small use of 3d implemented within it also. It looks frame by frame and has a rough sketchy feel to the animation, it also feels a little jerky but overall works nicely especially with the various effects used throughout.
Second Wind from Ian Worrel on Vimeo.
I feel that these style of animations would be a strong style to convey the E4 Monday Night Movies. E4 uses bold colours and graphic shapes and by using bright strong colours and basic graphic animation it will go hand in hand with the logo.
This animation really reminds me of working within Flash using the onion skin layer. The layer effect in flash shows the previous frame and allows you to draw the next frame with detail and accuracy. This however has been redrawn and painted on walls, an incredibly long process however looks fantastic in execution.
After looking at some examples I decided to sketch out some rough ideas and narrowed my work into three initial ideas.
The first idea is to have a character approach a wardrobe. The character then enters the wardrobe and exits as different iconic film characters. For example superman, king kong, jack sparrow, indiana jones etc. To give it the wacky E4 humour the last scene would be with the Indiana Jones character and a boulder falls out the wardrobe crushing him in a cartoon looney tunes style.
The second idea is a character going to the cinema only to find it's overpriced and is unable to see a film. The character then walks home and enters house. Character then takes various snacks (relates to the guilty pleasures). Character sits down, turns on TV and watches E4 Monday Night Movies and the Character is content. The idea behind this one is that E4 is there for free whereas the cinema is overpriced, you'll still enjoy yourself with E4' s films.
The last idea is similar to the idea above however this idea has the character walking along and turns to see an E4 Monday Night Movies poster. He then notices its on an E4 cinema building. He enters, and has no money for a ticket. The staff points at poster that says "Free Entry, Free Snacks". The character in an excited manner grabs popcorn and icecream. The character enters cinema screen room in excitement and seats himself near the front. The characters view is then obstructed by a man in the row in front with a huge afro. The E4 management shaves off the afro and the main character is content. E4 logo appears on cinema screen.
Out of these 3 ideas the 3rd idea is already more developed than the other two, I feel that this idea is the stronger of the two. So I began to develop this idea and start sketching out some characters.
Finished Result
I also implemented music within the animation just to give it the extra E4 feel, using an slightly funky, slow tempo track. It slightly reminds me of a Gorillaz track when played back as the Gorillaz music videos are also unusual and wacky, music can really help express and accentuate the style of the animation/video. Overall I am pleased with the finished result!
E4 Ident from Andrew Seabrook on Vimeo.
Evaluation
For this project I was to promote and create a short ident for E4’s Monday Night Movies. I began first by looking at E4’s current adverts and the overall style. I also looked at other various animations; mainly Flash hand-drawn animations as I felt that it matched E4’s style and theme. After gathering some research I began sketching out some ideas and storyboards, once I had the character and storyboards drawn out I began animating.
The flash animation is mainly composed of a mixture of tweening and frame-by-frame animation. The drawings are also painted within Flash and help give it a cartoon feel. I used the colour and theme of E4 throughout the animation to give it a strong sense of identity and felt that this worked effectively. I also implemented a minimal backing track to give it an even stronger theme.
Overall I enjoyed this project and felt that it was successful in promoting the Monday Night Movies.