Pitch

I pitched to Diana & Val via E-mail and sent them my video files with some information on my ideas and how I got to them.

This is in response to Diana asking for the music alongside my idents.  I thought this was a bit strange as I never received a final music piece as she had others to attend to when I asked.

I pitched to both Val & Diana my workings and ideas to wait for feedback with some of my own recommendations for my work.

Communication

These are my E-mails I have been sending to Val & Diana.  I thought I would list them all together then list underneath what the mail was about.

Above here is my E mail from Val after I showed her my idents.  She asked me to change the art style of the Brighton Landmarks which I played around with.  Overall she liked the theme a lot.

This is Diana who was in charge of the music.  She liked the graphics a lot.

This is the E-mail I sent to Val & Diana I explained my uni deadlines and sent her my idents.

I asked Diana about a particular theme.  I asked her about the music.  She sent us an 'unfinished' peice of music in which by the weekend we would have the final product.  We never received any so I had to use what i had got given.

Above in reply to Diana about my feedback.

Above is Val suggesting the seagull theme for the idents for Latest TV.

Above is Diana explaining she would of sent me a finished piece of music, but she didn't.

Above here is me explaining that I would like a .png or PDF file of the Channel 8 logo and the Latest TV logo.  I received the style guide for Latest TV logo which explained measurements, size and colours.

Above is me asking about specific themes.

Above is Diana asking to see my ident clips with the music clip she sent me.

ident 3

This is my 3rd and final ident.  This one is more LatestTV orientated or more of an obvious choice than the previous.  This has the Channel 8 logo fade in to the centre of the screen.  The red part of the 8 appears first, followed by the rest of the channel 8 logo.  

Sky gradient.

In this frame you can see the clouds coming into the screen on either sides.  The red part of the logo also fades in.

The rest of the Channel 8 logo appears in the centre of the screen.  I feel this screenshot looks clean and crisp and matches my others in a series of footage.

Everything present on screen begins to fade out.

The LatestTV logo then appears and fills the screen.  This is what happens in every ident, all kept below 10 seconds and as short as possible.

idents 2

In this ident I wanted to be more creative.  I wanted to do something that was really expected.  Something original and unique.  The plan for this one was to have bubbles being blown up into the air, then the seagull comes and swoops down and pops one of the bubbles.  The bubble then reveals the LatestTV logo.  The logo falls to the bottom and then again like my first idea, takes to the full screen.  At first the ident may not be immediately obvious that it's branded towards Latest TV.  However I feel this is a unique idea.  I will send these to Val. 

Opening frame, bubbles flow upwards in the sky with passing clouds used in my first ident.

The seagull swoops down from the left in flight, popping one of the bubbles that reveals the logo.  I have added a splat/pop animation to make this more obvious to people that have never seen this before.

The seagull pops the bubble then flys off to the right out of view.  Again, the LatestTV logo appears taking over the screen with the white background.

idents 1

I have been working on my first ident and these are some screenshots from it.  I have been keeping within the 1-10 second time ratio.  Before I started designing I wanted to keep them fairly short as I believe this will be more effective.  In this ident, I have worked on my vectors from the Brighton landmarks in my previous posts.

In the above image shot I have the opening frame.  Brighton landmarks are down the bottom of the screen acting like a boarder or half banner.  I think this really works as It looks like all the landmarks have come together and they all fit.  I have included the Channel 8 logo in the centre.  This is the focal point of the ident.  Focusing purely on the brand & channel.  

I have the seagull flying in from the left.  I tried  making it white as seagulls are but like I said in my previous post, It kind of got lost in the background.  Something new I did add were the clouds, moving left to right.  This is something I did not have in but added in at last.  I made them in Illustrator and reduced the opacity to make them more life like.  I added them because just the gradient background seemed to static.  The bird flys in..

The seagull then lands on the Channel 8 logo.  The screen's transparency fades out..

Lastest TV logo is revelled.  All of this animates in around 8 seconds.  My next step is to E-mail Val the graphics and see what she wants changing. 

Brighton Landmarks Further Research

Brighton Pier.  Defiantly going to be a big part of labelling my idents a part of Brighton.

Ferris wheel.  Not the biggest part of Brighton however it is recognised along the seafront.

Will use this as part of my idents.

Part of Brighton Pavilion.

The old Pier.  Slightly unsure weather I should use this old pier as it doesn't resemble Brighton as a positive aspect. - Something to think about. 

Windmill.

Pavilion.

Ferris wheel, day time.

Clock tower.

AfterEffects & Artwork 

I started working on the seagull.  I am only planning on making it once then I can use it across the range of idents.  I decided since the bird will have the illusion of flying, I will need to get a photo thats at the right angle and shape and so on.  Below are my workings for the seagull.  I decided to work in black.  Reasons for this are that In my opinion It doesn't contrast too much against the light background.  A white seagull would blend into the gradient sky.  And of course, I haven't had any controlled direction from Val in terms of what colour this should be.

Seagull body.

Seagull wing.

Seagull wing.

After Effects & Artwork

I have started to use AfterEffects to design my idents along with AdobeIllustrator.  Val who is in charge of the graphical aspects, hasn't been that helpful in terms of what she wanted.  She has been saying to me just do what you think would suit LatestTV and Brighton.  I was left with no real direction of where to head down so I decided on Brighton landmarks.  I wanted create a banner like effect with the Brighton landmarks.  This would go along well with my gradient sky background. 

Below are some of my working files;

This is a windmill in Brighton.  A vector I created.  I thought a good idea would be to make the windmill fins turn.

This is the clock tower in Brighton, Churchill Square.

Brighton Pier, Seafront.

Bright ferris wheel, Seafront.

I am undecided weather these vectors will make an appearance in every ident.  I made these by original photos.  I traced over them and altered the tolerance to change the colours to my desire.

ident Ideas

I have started to mock up ideas in my sketchbook for my clips.  I feel that it is important to actually include 'Brighton' within my clips but this is not final stage yet.  

Opening sequence of 'Brighton' in a rich character font with a dark to light gradient.  The LatestTV logo is right underneath.

I had the idea of the seagull flying across the sky in full movement.  By this I mean flapping it's wings and the full motion of anything else that may be moving.  The seagull will be carrying the logo in it's mouth.

Continued here..

Continued again..

At the end I was going to have the seagull drop the logo then the seagull disappears and the logo takes over the screen.  This is my very first idea.  I have come up with other ideas within my sketchbook.  I decided to put my first on Blogger, just to give you a feel of what my ideas are about.  My second idea was simply 'Brighton Pier' the standing letters outside the pier.  The seagull lands on top of the letter standings and the logo then appears and takes over the whole screen.  This is something I want to keep uniformed - the logo 'LatestTV' taking over the whole screen.  My final third idea is more contemporary and almost random like.  After looking into previous idents it was obvious that you can pretty much do anything.  Obviously in relation to the subject matter.  In this case, Brighton.

Below is the font choice I would want to use;

This font is very decorative and I think represents Brighton very well.  I love the decorative feel about it.  The typeface face is layered, with a black background to each letter.  This brings the type off the screen making it 3D like.  The dots within the letters remind me of Lights you would find in a city.  All these ideas will have to be sent to Val & Diana who are my clients.

Themes

After deciding I thought having a dark to light blue gradient for all idents as a background would keep them uniformed and within the criteria given by Val.  

Below is what I wanted to use.  It symbolises the sky on a clear day.  This would be present in all other idents.  I think it is important to keep to one theme to retain the same certain visual feel about them.  

I will E-mail Val to ask her about keeping the same theme between all of them. 

I like the clear, crisp feel about this.  It comes across very pleasantly and life like in my opinion.  

ident research

I have begun to search into TV idents to explore what they are really about and see how they work.

Below here are some videos which are useful in getting an idea for my own.

This one above here are TV idents from 2008 made for BBC 2.  The first thing I noticed about them is the length.  Each one is very short and snappy.  Most of the idents are completely different from each other with no overall theme.  However there is one where the cyclists are cycling round the BBC 2 circle then the BBC 2 logo appears inside.  This is the only one I can think they have re-created.  Keeping the circle in the middle, instead of using cyclists there is one where hippos are swimming around in the circle.  The actual content is different but the style is the same.  Since I will be creating 2-4 idents, this is good to know that maybe I can do the same.  I will have to speak with Val about an overall theme or weather she would prefer it is they were all individual different ones. Part of the brief says as an idea maybe you can have a different season focus over all of them so this is something to speak with Val about. 

This one above is interesting because the idents represent 60 years of idents on the BBC.  It was interesting how far they have come along from the first few ideas.  Its clear that a lot of them have been used again years later, just updated versions.  A clear one was the globe spinning on it's axis. 

Music

As far as music goes, Diana has sent me a tune that she has composed.  Now, she says that this tune is not a final piece but a rough.  She said it's 'unpolished'.  The music has apparently been made by a guitar and is meant to be the noise of seagulls along with a tune.  In my opinion I think the music isn't that great at all.  I think the music is too depressing and down due to the chords and notes being played.  Anyway, this is not my decision so I will be using this.  She said she would send me a final piece of music at the weekend but that never happened and she has wanted me to use this piece of music that was not the final one.  She said she has other pieces of music to attend to that were more urgent for other people's sequences.  In my opinion this isn't very fair as It became apparent that all the music pieces were urgent and just a select few.  Anyway I am going to go ahead and use this music like she has asked me to.

E-mails

Below is a screenshot of what Val & Diana suggested the theme of the idents could be.

Val suggested seagulls.  She also said a composer, part of LatestTV called Diana will be sending us a piece of music to go along within our idents.

After looking into photos of seagulls I thought it would be useful for me to look for some videos of seagulls in flight to see the motion of their wings in full flight and just in still.  I have some ideas in my head already so I know what kind of videos will be useful to me despite no planning as of yet.

Below are some videos I found that would be of use to me for my theme:

This video is a perfect shot of a seagull in flight.  The way the wings move is defiantly something to take on board as I think this could be useful to study when and if I do my own.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSikfcJezy4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RvE4D1lwjE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HspNemhgv0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUlXWGsyh6I