EVALUATION-Visual Kandy

Evaluation:

I was looking forward to commencing this brief as the main draw for me into digital media was movie title sequences and channel "Idents" although at the time I didn't know they were called that! I just referred to them as "graphic things" so I was excited about getting to use after effects as I'd never used it before!

I chose to do "custard" because I like cartoons and quirky fun things so I thought I could do something similar to my Treesprite story that I did for the interactive brief, which I really enjoyed because I got to use my own narrative and was able to go wild and create my own thing.

I started with the idea of using the ingredients used to make custard, I knew that I would stick to this idea no matter what so there was no point wasting time going through lots of ideas, although I did think about different ways in which I could do this, (as you can see from earlier posts) I thought of pouring ingredients into letter shapes, making a custard pie and filming it, etc but in the end I decided I wanted a little story that would appeal to kids, so I chose to have an egg getting slaughtered and then mixed in with flour etc and the word Custard to appear from the mixture, I was never 100% on how I was going to implement this aspect however.

I thought the slight dark humor involved would appeal to older kids and the brief stated that it wanted a fun and chaotic Ident and logo.

I did have to change things at the end, because I found my entire script was over and done with in about 12 seconds, so I had to improvise and add the "flour clouds" into the mix that would then become the word custard instead of the egg yolk, I'm glad I did this however as I think it looks much better.

I know this all comes down to having an animatic and wish I had done a better one with the sound then I would have a better idea of timing, this has made me realize how important this part is, I did have an experimental movie that I did on pencil but it is not a fully realized animatic with sound.

I did do a little research on the "tweens" and found that most shows aimed at them are documentary style, cooking, arts and crafts, animals, discovery etc rather than ben 10 and fosters home for imaginary friends, (although I like kids cartoons I had to remember that older kids just want to be grown up and so cartoons are probably considered very "un-cool" for them) this is why I came up with the idea of cooking some custard because it would be real life footage as a pose to a cartoon, and it would have some kind of instruction and "coolness" to it, (cause I would have made making a custard look cool!) but then I really wanted to have it as a cartoony graphicy look, my reasoning being that it would be easier to create the writing using graphics instead of attempting to do them using moulds etc, plus I didn't have the money to get these made!

so maybe if this was a professional brief and I had funding I would have gone with the first idea, (live film footage) and would have involved some kids in the process so that it felt more like it was "their" channel and involved them in some way.

But I am happy with the result of my ident and I can see it being used on a kids TV channel, but maybe one aimed at younger viewers, but to be fair the brief was a bit odd in that it came across as being a show for younger kids in the way it was presented and even the title, but then it went on to say it was for tweens? this just seemed a bit mismatched anyway and as it was a fictional brief I felt a little improvisation would be ok.

With regard to using the software, thankfully I found it quite easy in comparison to other packages we've worked with, I had to view a few tutorials on "video co-pilot" before I could even start a project so thank you to VCP for having such clear and concise tutorials that I had no trouble following, they are stars! and I didn't even have to pay them! how ironic.

We had a 2 day introduction in to the software at college as usual and then you are expected to find out the rest yourself, which I did, and am glad I did, I don't feel this justifies the expense of the course however and am a little put out that when I asked for help on a couple of occasions I was not given it. However on other occasions I was helped by the technicians and Matt did come and see how my work was going a few times and offered a bit of help too so I am thankful

for the effort.

I am very happy with my attempt considering it was my first time and I had no training, I am looking forward to using after effects again and want to explore the software package in more depth and would like to experiment with live footage and fonts next time I use it.

I previously wanted to go down the "Flash" route but am not so sure now as it seems I can do the same in AE.

Having now done a bit of everything and with the decision of what we want to specialize in coming up I would say I definitely drawn to motion graphics as I thought I would be, and would like to learn a hell of a lot more! but I am also still interested in 2D animation which I can do in AE of Flash.

If I had to do this brief again I would produce an animatic that demonstrated timing, sound etc and I would experiment with more ideas, but again to be fair I would need more time to do all of this, or maybe now that I know the software a bit better I would feel more able to just get on with it instead of feeling a little lost and unmotivated as a result of not knowing the software.

Finished Ident! well pretty much....

Well I rushed toward the end, with the 5 logo,

I had completely forgotten about that! I like

how it comes into the sequence, but the square

box around it doesn't look good, if I were to

go back and tweak it I would remove that box

and just have the word 5. I would also have the

eggy custard word drip down over the five logo.

However I don't think I will be tweaking it anymore,

I doubt it will affect my mark, but maybe this is

something I could return to later if I want it in my

portfolio?

But right now I have too much other stuff to get on

with and would just like to move on!!

Tweens research

Well I haven't really blogged since returning to college, so here is my first year 2 blog-post! the brief is "visual candy" and we have to create an ident for a fictional tv channel that is 20 seconds long and meets all the criteria as set out in the brief.

Of the 5 channel choices, I am drawn to the pre-teens kids channel "custard" which requires a chaotic, energetic and visually dynamic channel ident to display between shows etc and to identify the channel with.

The brief also involves making a new logo for the channel, I cannot look at previous examples as this is a fictional station, however I have looked at some logo's for some other childrens TV shows such as:

Cbeebies is a channel from the BBC that is aimed at pre-schoolers, under 5's. It shows puppet based shows that revolve around song and dance, numbers and colors, ie: tweenies, teletubbies, night garden etc.

CBBC is the regular CBBC channel that is aimed at 6-9 year olds or there abouts, content is more vocational and looks at the environment, cooking, arts and crafts, gadget shows, animals and generally more documentary styled programs.

The cartoon network is aimed at children aged around 8-12 but rather than being educational or documentary themed it is totally random cartoons that are often gross out humor, ie: Ed, Edd and Eddie, Rem & Stimpy, ben 10 etc.

I would say alot of teens and even adults like to watch these shows!

This is the old Nickelodeon logo (above)

and other variations below, this channel shows alot more live shows such as i carly and the troop, their are some CGI based shows, (Jimmy neutron) and traditional cell shaded stuff like spongebob, fairly odd parents, fosters home for imaginary friends etc.

more variations on the logo used for the channel and some for marketing, print, etc.

There is also a Nick Junior channel aimed at younger viewers and a Nicktoons channel which is purely cartoons, wheras Nick Junior looks at pre-school entertainment such as arts and crafts, puppet based shows, music and dance etc similar to Cbeebies.

There is also Jetix, a channel which to me seems to be aimed at boys who are probably aged between 6-11 or in other words "tweens" as all their shows are definitely "boy" orientated, ie: batman, iron man, dennis the menace, storm hawks, galactik football etc.

There is the Disney Channel which is aimed at a variety of age groups, they have sections for boys, girls, teens, pre-schoolers with playhouse disney which shows winnie the pooh, mickey mouse etc and the tween aimed channels air stuff like hannah montana, high school musical etc. which are basically updated versions of grease, mandy comics, etc.

There is also the Discovery kids channel which focusses on animal shows, documentary's, history programs etc. It's basically an encyclopedia put into media rich TV shows for kids!

I was thinking of these information type shows aimed at tweens in line with the custard brief, and I immediately thought of shows such as Art attack, that cooking game show hosted by leslie something? was it called splat? shows about construction and deconstruction, that's the kind of stuff that they like at that age so my initial idea was to look at making an Ident that focussed on actually making custard in a cut down compact little film that would end with the word custard being formed from the ingredients, so that could be the kids making the custard and taking it out of the oven to find it was made in the shape of the word or it could simply be moulds made to hold the ingredients separately, each as a different letter.

The only problem I had with this was that it would have a home-made budget feel to it, and I don't feel that this will work for the brief, most Children's TV channels use graphics for Idents and logos, (see above) this allows them to be clear, concise and clean cut whilst at the same time being colorful and chaotic adding movement and sound to grab attention and add dynamism.

Another thing I noted whilst looking into these brands is that their identities are very STRONG and clear on what they are, each one is instantly recognizable and they each stand out from each other and are very different in relation to adult TV logos and graphics.

The other problem I have with this brief is that the name Custard relates to Cbeebies, Milkshake and that kind of thing so anyone would instantly assume that it is a pre-school channel rather than a station for older children to watch, so will my cute characters appeal to this demographic? They appeal to me as an adult, and I'm sure what with brands such as Tokidoki and harajuku lovers being very popular now with young adults and teens alike that this look will be appealing, I just need to make sure the overall execution works and them I'm sure it will be ok as there will be the construction/making elements involved and a little bit of quirky fun and jokey violence thrown in which our youtube/facebook generation of kids will definitely appreciate.

Pet Society is a very popular facebook game based on the also popular and somewhat revolutionary in it's time "animal crossing" game for the nintendo gamecube, although it is an over 13 years based chat site, the game also appeals to younger players, there are also similar games available for the DS for children in the tween age group that are similar in gameplay to this and so I feel that if they like this sort of thing that my storyboard can work.

Channel 5 logo

I have been looking at a few channel 5 logo's to use in the brief and just decided to go with the standard "FIVE" one as it seemed more official to me and familiar.

I did like the colored logo but felt it would take alot more to get it in, and I do not have the time at this stage to do what I would want to with it.

More storyboards!

Here are some new storyboards and ideas that I have been thinking about, basically I want to have more of a narrative involved so have decided to start with the eggs being shown in their box, but some are missing, a hand appears and takes one of the eggs, (I think it would look interesting to have a "real" image of a hand, rather than a hand drawn one, similar to the collage techniques used in some of the monty python films) the egg looks scared as he is set down only to see the remains of the other "missing" eggs lying around, he looks around nervously for a second or two before the "evil spoon" appears which then proceeds to crack him open, the remains spill onto the floor and then the word "custard" comes into play, via one of the methods shown above. I have decided to leave out the other ingredients and focus on the eggs in favor of narrative, I feel that although it would have been good to have the other ingredients thrown in as it would have had more of a connection to the brief title, it wouldn't have worked as nicely narrative-wise, and was only added in for the sake of it, I think to stick with the eggs as a storyline is much better, and I like the story, it has undertones of horror that I think will intrigue young audiences alike. Of course I will be asked why an egg? how is it relevant to custard? well you need eggs to make custard, and what you are seeing is in fact a part of the "custard making process" it's just been characterized and simplified for the sake of children's entertainment! The brief is to make something wacky and appealing and I think that's what I've done.

with regard to sound. I want to have an annoying zany beat with children's voices shouting "CUSTARD" at the end when the word custard appears onscreen and the channel 5 logo.

I have arranged to record this sound at my children's school and will then import it into my project!

Test movie

This is just a test film of how my finished work may look, or to give an idea of timing, this basically starts with one egg rather than the 4 needed to make custard, he is highly characterized and expressional. He is then cracked open by a vicious spoon and becomes a splatter of egg, (also characterized) who then looks up to see a bag of flour falling on top of him, this is followed by some sugar and salt, vanilla extract that all becomes a ball of mush, this then explodes into the word "custard" on screen.

I would like to start the film by showing a box of 6 eggs that is then opened and then one egg is picked for slaughter as such, the other eggs can look scared, relieved etc. I could even have some missing already, and then when the new egg is selected for slaughter he notices other bits of egg shell scattered around him and gets a bit nervous....

Visual Kandy Custard storyboards