Completed Resubmission Opening Sequence

Ident Images

This is our idea for the Ident of our AS product. We are then going to do a stop start motion and you will see the grass, flower and petals all grow.

Existing Idents

I found these websites extremely useful when researching and planning the production of our own ident:

http://idents.tv/blog/2008/05/18/the-idents-of-cinema-the-big-six-studios/

The idents of cinema: The big six studios.

Published on May 18, 2008 in Videos: Idents. 

These six videos are some of the most ubiquitous examples of entertainment branding found in popular culture. They come from the “big six” studios and preface the vast majority of films produced, and all have one thing in common.. unusally epic and grandiose imagery that only the film industry could get away with using.

The histories behind these stately logos are as interesting as some of the movies they precede: Paramount’s mountain logo for example is the oldest surviving studio emblem dating back to 1912, and is believed to be based upon Ben Lomond Mountain in Utah, although Peru’s Artesonraju is a closer fit.

While Columbia’s torch carrying lady dates back to 1924, the most recent incarnation is not as some thought modelled by Annette Benning, but actually the much more unassuming Jenny Joseph, a mother of two from Houston.

And the iconic Art Deco monument that 20 Century Fox uses as a logo was developed in 1935, and received a series of revisions before being standardised in 1994 with CGI, but only after a failed attempt to actually build a live action version of the monument.

What are some of the better studio idents around at the moment? I’ve always been a fan of Pixar’s jumping desk lamp myself.

http://tdylf.com/2011/03/10/11-great-film-company-idents/

12 Great Film Company Idents

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A few months back, I discussed the evolution of the Universal Pictures ident in some detail. Many incarnations of the intro evoke positive movie memories for me. But they aren’t the only film company whose ident has a positive connotation. Not including Universal, here are twelve more great film company idents. The plan was for eleven but there was one that would get left out, which seems pointless:

The Criterion CollectionIt’s simple, it’s clean, it evokes a running film projector, and it serves as the intro to some of the best films in history:

Metro Goldwyn Mayer (M.G.M.)This one has been around forever and ever, dating back to 1917 (per  the Wikipedia page). MGM currently is on their fifth lion, Leo, who has been used since the 1950′s.

Tri-Star (now TriStar)As you can guess from the image header, TriStar was bound to make an appearance. If you grew up during the 80′s, then you have a huge amount of nostalgia for Pegasus leaping over the serif font version of “Tri-Star”. The ident has since been updated but I’ll always think of this particular version:

20th Century FoxMuch like MGM’s lion, the fanfare and spotlights on the oversized studio name is as iconic as they come in movie theaters. Here’s one of the older versions, not that it’s changed much:

Columbia PicturesHere’s another that hasn’t changed much. To my knowledge, it’s always been the robed woman holding the torch. However, they have added some motion and depth to the old gal through the years:

Svensk FilmindustriOk, ok… I get it. Most people aren’t real familiar with this one. If you’ve ever seen an Ingmar Bergman film, or really any Swedish film, then you know this intro. Given the intense quality of Swedish films, you’re almost certainly in for a great movie when you see this:

Studio CanalSimilar to Svensk, if you’re seeing this intro, you’re probably watching a foreign film that’s been distributed in the U.S.

Warner BrothersIt’s extraordinarily difficult to associate this with anything other than Bugs Bunny. Somehow, that doesn’t seem like a bad thing for WB. All the same, here’s their non-Looney Tunes version:

Paramount PicturesParamount has stayed true to its brand, featuring the mountain peak and the stars seemingly forever. Like Columbia, the only difference is that it’s been polished and updated to add depth and motion:

DisneyDisney is one of the few major studios who HAS changed their ident quite a bit, going from a simple white-on-blue vector drawing to this more majestic piece. I have to confess, I preferred the simpler, less over-the-top version:

DreamworksIt should come as no surprise that John Williams, frequently the composer on Steven Spielberg’s films, would compose the music for Spielberg’s film company ident.

Hammer StudiosAs my friend Marty has pointed out in the comments section, Hammer Studios’ famous gong is an omission. So I’ve added it. Unfortunately, I can’t find a video of it. But if you’ve ever seen a Hammer Horror, you recognize this image:

Ident Research

We also decided that our opening sequence would look much better and more professional with a production company ident. Therefore, I did some research on idents and looked at existing idents. 

Idents are also used in television:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_BBC_television_idents

History of BBC television idents

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The history of BBC television idents begins in the early 1950s, when the BBC first displayed a logo between programmes to identify its service. As new technology has become available, these devices have evolved from simple still black and white images to the sophisticated full colour short films seen today. With the arrival of digital services in the United Kingdom, and with them many more new channels, branding is perceived by broadcasters to be much more important, meaning that idents need to stand out from the competition.

This article describes the development of the BBC's main television channels' identities.

BBC One 'Circle' idents

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Hippos ident

The BBC One 'Circle' idents are a set of on-screen channel identities that debuted on BBC Oneat 9:58am BST on 7 October 2006. They also feature on the BBC Worldwide channel, BBC America. The idents contain images of circles being formed by nature, or people and their actions.

Creating New Storyboards

We began by showing our product to the class and taking audience feedback; some students stated that they felt that our biggest drawback was that our storyline was still unclear. Henceforth, we sat down as a group and watched our sequence over and over, verbally discussing changes that could be made each time. At first, we thought we would have to re-film it entirely due to unnecessary effects, and strange angles we had originally chosen! However, all was not lost... We spoke with our teachers, our technicians, and TAs, and finally, taking in to account all of their advice, came to the conclusion that we should keep all of our original footage, just alter our idea in order for the storyline to become clearer to the audience.

Nonetheless, we decided that should go back to the drawing board, BUT that we should use all of our original ideas, cut them out of our storyboards, and mix them around. 

Evaluation Conclusion

If I was to do this all again, I would return to the idea of using a number of overlapping voiceovers during the hospital scene.

This was a really good idea and would have made what is happening here more clear.

It was a shame that the technology required to do this wasn’t working and that our schedule was too tight to do it later in the process.

I would also maybe think more about the colours worn by the characters and maybe add some digetic music or conversation to the car journey at the beginning.

To conclude, I am happy with our final product and I think that it fits the brief well.

I think that it suits our target audience well.

And, despite challenging some conventions, think that it fits the genre equally.

I am pleased with my progress in terms of technology and skills and think that a particular strong point of ours was teamwork!

Overall, I am happy with what we created and hope that you enjoyed it!

Evaluation Questions 6 and 7- SlideShare

I created a Powerpoint presentation and uploaded it to Slideshare in order to embed it on my blog. It answers Q6 (What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product) and Q7 (Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?) of my evaluation:

Evaluation Question 5

5.    What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

We would advertise our film on posters around towns, on the Internet, trailers of other films for 16-35 year olds and on the television. This is because we would like our film to be seen everywhere in order for everyone to see an advert and be attracted to watch our film for it to be as popular and successful as possible.

After advertising, we would like our film to be shown in cinemas around the country because this is where films have the most impact on the audience as the best atmosphere is created due to the big screen and loud sound. Eventually, our film would be sold on DVD and BluRay and possibly even shown on television occasionally.

Evaluation Question 4- Self-Video

4.    How did you attract/address your audience?

 We began the planning process by watching and discussing existing thriller films that we, as teenagers, liked and what aspects of them we felt were the most effective. We then collected together the ideas we liked the most, and created a pitch, which we presented to our peers- as they too are within our target age range. Whilst they were watching our pitch we addressed our audience directly by handing out questionnaires we had created to collect information regarding the ideas it contained; which they liked the most and which they felt needed the most improvement- alongside suggestions of how it could be improved. We chose to use teenaged characters to allow more effective catharsis and to help the audience to create relationships with the characters. Also, we researched our target audience thoroughly in order to attract our audience by giving them exactly what they want.