Monday 20 June 2011

E4 Ident Evaluation

I came to a decision which was cutout animation. My idea’s theme was comedy and involved a collection of popular sitcoms from E4 put into a cutout animation with memorable quotes playing in the back ground while the characters mimed. At the end of the ident I made a short sequence of the characters followed by a miniature cartoon like explosion then the E4 logo to conclude.

My personal opinion was that my ident was a success. On the other hand this opinion was backed up by the feedback I received from my colleagues in my class and my tutor. What made my ident a success I believe was the amount of creativity and humour which tends to capture and entertain a mass majority of audiences, especially fans of sitcoms and E4. Positives aside, there is always room for improvement. I noticed the way I edited my ident was not very smooth and is quite far away from a professional standard. White balance alongside with contrast stood out as amature not to mention sound levels and the timing of the characters lip sync with the audio. Improvement of these points would of made a dramatic difference in my ident. The fact I realise all this will have a big impact on any future video based project I do in future. I believe this was a positive experience for me and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Having no previous experience with istopmotion and Macintosh computers made this assignment difficult for me. With help from my peers and tutor I got to grip with the software and computer and slowly progressed to create my ident. Stop start animation is a long process and I found it very difficult especially cutout animation. I tried very hard to get my idea from my head to paper, from paper to computer, from computer to the internet (youtube).

Having over 90% positive feedback for my ident made me more than happy as it was much more than I had expected. If ever given the chance to do an identical or similar project I believe I would be able to be more organised, more focused and more importantly more professional.

Self Evaluation

1 lowest and 5 Highest

1. How well do you think you have managed your time?
2


2. Give examples of where you managed your time effectively or where you could have improved your time management.

My production was on time, I planned and filmed my ident in 2 lessons but my pre-production work was only completed after I filmed. I could of improved my pre-production if I was strict to my schedule.

3. How well did you fulfil your role on this project?
3


4. How did you fulfil your role? Give examples to justify your score.

This score reflects on my ability to organize and concentrate on my goal.


5.How well do you think your animation answered the creative brief?

3


6.What aspects of the brief did you manage to fulfil? Give examples.

My ident was a form of 2 animations, stop start and cut out. I also kept it colour co-ordinated with E4.


7. What areas of the project didn’t work well? In future what you differently?


The areas that didn’t work well for me were the editing. I didn’t have any experience using Final Cut pro with the Macs also matching the audio I had with the cutout animation I made was very difficult because again I had no experience.


8. What areas of the project are you most proud of?

I was most proud of the fact that the outcome of my ident was as I imagined and the fact that I could use this experience for any similar future situations.

Proposal

Production Company: Raffstar & Co.

Working title:
Cutout the Comedy

By line
My E4 ident is a Cutout animation of popular sitcom characters from E4. Beginning with The Simpson’s followed by Scrubs, then The Cleveland Show, afterwards The Big Bang Theory. Each character in the animation had their own scene and mimed a funny quote taken from their actual television show. After all the funny scenes finished all the characters lined up with Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory at the end and a space invaders sound effect in the back ground. Afterwards Sheldon’s Head explodes and the E4 logo is shown.

Synopsis

The opening of my E4 ident starts with a close up of Homer Simpson with his famous ‘spider-pig’ song playing in the background. The second scene is a medium close up shot of Turk from Scrubs with a funny quote taken from the program playing in the back ground. In the third scene JD from Scrubs is shown in a medium close up shot on the right side of the screen and in the back ground playing is JD telling a joke taken from the sitcom. The fourth scene is a medium close up on Cleveland Brown from The Cleveland Show and in the back ground playing is Cleveland talking to his step son Rallo. Scene number five starts with Rallo talking back to his step father Cleveland, this scene is a full body shot of Rallo. The sixth shot of this ident is a medium close up shot of Leonard from The Big Bang Theory with a funny quote taken from the sitcom. Scene seven is of Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory in a medium close up shot with him on the left side of the screen miming a funny quote taken from the television program. At the end of the individual shots of each character comes the climax of the ident. Here all the characters are lined up next one another in order Leonard, Homer, Rallo, Cleveland, JD and Turk, then Sheldon who is horizontal slowly turns upwards, afterwards Sheldon’s Head explodes and the E4 logo appears on the screen. During this last scene space invaders sound effects are played in the back ground followed by a sound effect of an explosion.
I intended for my characters Leonard, Homer, Rallo, Cleveland, JD and Turk, and Sheldon to appeal to the audience by using the uncommon animated technique cutout animation, the quotes from the sitcoms I used I hand picked because of the memorable scenes they are from.
I started my ident with Homer Simpson because he is a world wide known cartoon character and I knew that would catch the audiences attention straight away. My aim after catching the audience’s attention was to keep that attention and focus it in on the audio part of the ident. This is because the audio part is where the humor is. Associating the characters I picked with E4 instantly informed the viewers that they could watch these popular sitcoms on E4 for entertainment. My ident appeals to the demographic because of the characters, humor and colours i used.

Personnel
My name is Raphael Ayson and My strengths are being imaginative and pessimistic. Professionally I believe I am organized and a good team leader.
I will keep my production on schedule by organizing dates and targets that need to be met but also leave room for mistakes.

Resources
For my ident I will be needing a webcam, a computer, blue tack, colour printed cutouts of characters and a A3 sized purple sheet of card.

Schedule

Pre Production
Research
Planning
9th September– 25th October
Production
Colour Print outs
Filming
26th October – 1st November
Post Production
Edit
Evaluation
2nd November – 16th November