Target Audience for my Ident

my Ident is aimed at young film makers ranging from around 16 - 25. my Ident is aimed at passionate filming pioneers who are still learning how to make a proffesioanal cinematic productions, i think I've shown this in my Ident by creating a complicated professional sequence of 3D tracking text onto a wall.

A target audience is a way of defining a market. Target audience is a group of people which fit a specific target at which a product is aimed at. It is important to have a target audience as it is a way of defining who you are aiming at rather than selling your idea to a broader audience, you can also attract more people by targeting a specific market for instance smiths toys advertise their products on TV channels like Cartoon Network, Nikelodeon, boomerang and many more kids channels but they have never advertised on channels like Kerrang, Sky 1,2 or any other channels like them because adults don't want to watch a million barbies fly past the screen. however the kids watching the kid channels will watch the adverts and ask their parents to buy them.

Photoshop

during this lesson we were introduced to the interface of Adobe Photoshop CS6, we were taught how to import files jpegs and other formats into photoshop. we were shown how to send files to other Adobe programs like Bridge , After effects , Illustrator. customising the workspace is much like changing the workspace in After effects as when you first enter photoshop the default workspace is essentials which is pretty much what you will need to touch up photographs and other images. we were also taught how to use some of the tools available like using the stamp tool to mark out odd areas and the magic wand tools to get rid of whole areas of the image.

After Effects Lesson 5 : Rotoscoping

In this lesson we created a composition which involved an illustrator promoting his work by putting himself in his own illustration, producing this composition was a bit more complicated than previous tutorials as we had to incorporate rotoscoping which is where we cut the head of the illustrator from that footage and then masked the head to create a P shape and used the knowledge from previous lessons to animate the background moving with key-frames and then the illustrator zooming in and out near the end to create some form of realism. 

After Effects Lesson 4: puppet tools

During this lesson I was taught how to use the puppet tools in Adobe After Effects CS6. This short animation consists of a man walking through a city and slips over a banana skin. To give our character life we used the puppet pin tool first which helped After Effects define what the body parts are, so we used a very basic five pin puppet which covered his arms, legs and head. however if you were working for Pixar animation you would use a ton more than five pins as they would cover all parts of the body that would be moving including very finger thumb and joints. once i had placed the pins in the appropriate spots i next used another tool in the puppet tab which is called the puppet starch tool which effectively tells After Effects where the shadow parts are so the arms and legs look natural and don't flow in front of the body.

after that we could make a walking cycle motion for the character by using key-frames to animate the character. key-frames are a fundamental part of creating animation on After Effects as they are what starts and ends an animation, when you add an effect or animation preset After Effects automatically displays the keyframes that are within the transition which you can then further edit to either slow, speed up or reverse the effect. when you use the puppet starch tool you will see triangles on certain parts of the character which will define where the body parts can overlap over the torso to make a fluid and life like motion. we then used the key-frames in the position properties to move the character across the screen and also the rotation to give the effect that when the character reaches the banana skin he falls over in a comical way.

After Effects Lesson 3: effects and presets

link to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=052_sdbAiek

During this lesson I learned how to create and animate text, stylise text, use key frames, animate layers using the parenting tool, edit ad animate  Photoshop documents and apply text animation to a graphic object. 

Firstly we had to import the road trip text layer and use the character panel to select a different font and a different typeface. We then continued to edit the text layer by changing the font size. once the text was sorted we had to add a text animation preset which was called evaporate, we added this preset to our text layer and ram previewed it. after that we selected the text layer and pressed U on the keyboard which bought up the animation properties of the layer we then moved the keyframes to different positions to make the preset reverse the animation.

to add realism to the composition we added an effect from the fey frame assistant called easy-ease. the next thing was to give the effect of the virtual  camera zooming away. after this we imported a new layer called compass, using the parent tool we parented the compass to the road trip layer which allows the compass to create the same effect as the road trip layer.

we imported a Photoshop document which contained text, once importing the psd file into after effects, we dragged the psd file into the timeline which opened out into its own timeline so we could  edit the text independently, we then added the fade up characters animation preset to reveal the text gradually we then sped the animation up by one second as we wanted to conserve animation space. 

the next step consisted of  us using a path animation preset which was called pipes, on screen it looks like a giant S but this path allows you to add an image or animation and animate it to fly around the shape, the path also is editable so you can move certain points around to get the desired shape. we then animated the directors name by animating type tracking which makes the words look as if they are expanding onscreen. we then jumped to Adobe Bridge and clicked on the increase tracking preset to apply it in After Effects.

after this we imported an image of a car into After Effects and then dragged it to the top of the layer stack. we then copied the mask path property of the directed by layer property and copied it into the car mask path properties to mimic the directed by layers key frames. after this we had to orientate the car by  clicking into the car layer s transform properties and click auto-orient. we did this to make the car face forward, after this we added motion blur to the car to make it look fast by clicking the little box on the car layer just under the motion blur button to select it.  

Point Tracking

link to point tracking: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lzl559_GO3U

Link to tracking camera example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMFH1wXHY0A

In todays lesson we were taught how to point track, point tracking is very similar to motion tracking but differs in the fact that when point tracking you are given specific tools to help track something like a dot moving across the screen to then add another layer on top which you could "parent" it with the dot to move at the same time. you could also use point tracking to add an image in a picture frame whilst the camera pans around the picture frame but the CG image stays in place giving the effect of the image being realistic.  

you can track things in many different ways in Adobe After Effects throughout the track camera and track motion. you usually use track camera if you wanted to add maybe 3D text to the floor of a track ing shot in which you will need to use the track camera tool to track the shot, you would then be able to create a virtual 3D camera that you can add text to. when you add text to that layer the text will no longer stay static and will give the illusion that its in the background. this is a cool effect for something like a title sequence or if you want to introduce something.

Motion tracking differs slightly from track an entire shot as you can track individual parts for instance if you had a 360 degree pivoting pan shot and you wanted to add a picture to a frame or footage to a blank TV screen you can do this through the track type tab in the motion tracker box called perspective corner pin which will give you four pins which you can scale and position to the desired spot. this type of tracking is effective for adding in extra footage which the actors can "look" at.

After Effects Lesson 2: transform properties

In this lesson I learnt how to use precompose layers apply effects from the effects and presets tab, adjust the transparency of a layer and many more. firstly i had to create a new composition by going into the composition bar and clicking on the new composition button, i the  imported an image of a building into Adobe After Effects which would be the background of the composition. i then imported a folder called destinations folder in which contained a few documents inside which were Adobe Illustrator documents. the destinations folder contains the logo which go's at the top right corner of the composition once the logo had been put in the timeline and in its place we used the selection tool which we then had to click on the text that the logo had around it and change the colour. We then created a text layer which sat next to the logo, we then add an effect called drop shadow which added a soft edged to the text that made the text stand out and look almost 3D, after applying that we used another effect called colour emboss which effectively sharpens the edges around the logo. we then added another effect to the text layer called bullet train which animated the text to slowly fly onto the screen. after this we then precomposed the layer in the destinations folder by going to the composition tab at the top of the screen and clicking on the precompose button mid way down the tab. we then previewed our compositions by hitting the play button in the preview tab. to make the small ident less visible we went into the layer clicked transform to bring a drop down tab and decreased the opacity to around 50 percent we did this so it would be fit for broadcast as if you leave it a 100 percent the ident could leave a mark on the actual TV screen. we then added the finished composition to the render queue which is in the composition tab add to render queue.

Ident Research!

This is the 2013 Ident for the Comedy Central channel.

Design : The design for this ident is pretty basic as it consist of the text jolting around the screen whilst the colour of the screen changes into different colours.                                                                       Purpose : the purpose of this ident I think is to look professional whilst making fast cuts and animations to entertain the audience and make sure that the audience will remember the channel.                       Intent:  the intent of this ident is to entertain the audience primarily but as its quite a simple idea think they are aiming at young adults to adults. 

This is the ident of the Kerrang music channel. 

the design for this ident is interesting because its half visual effects and half  real footage. the ident focuses on a "power ranger" like hero who has to fight a monster. the ident is fast paced and has shaky footage to add to the "realism" of the fight but its reaching out to the head banging audiences by adding the shakiness and fast cuts to the ident.
This is the ident for the C4 channel. all of the idents that C4 produce are always interesting as they vary from different locations but all have the same concept, which is different parts of the environment in the scene form the logo for C4. the target for C4 is 16 - 34 so this ident is effective in hitting that target audience by making the ident appeal to younger audiences, by varying the locations and design but also appealing to the older audiences by shooting real life footage combined with CGI. the intent of this ident is to entertain the audience but also make the viewer feel immersed in what they're about to watch.

This is the ident for the Itv 2 channel. this is the most recent ident which itv have broadcast, it involves a woman walking her dog (who has a lions main on) through a tunnel. there is quite a contrast of colours in this ident as the woman is very flamboyant through the dull grey tunnel, the dog and two boys on bikes also stand out from the background but the woman more so than the others. the target audience for itv is 16 - 34, i think the ident appeals to this particular audience firstly because there is two young boys and an older woman which instantly is hitting both ends of the scale, the ident also uses a professional shot of tracking the woman walking, the bright colours in contrast with the dull background would also draw the viewers in as its appealing to the eye. the intent of this ident is to draw the audience in to an entreating channel by using the bright colours in contrast, its much like the Kerrang ident where they use lots of bright colours with dull backgrounds.

Godzilla Remakes and Reboots video Presentation Link

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

above is the link to my video on youtube as blogger didn't let me upload it here.

Link to my Ident and Evaluation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7J9KYbXlLOA  

This is my finished ident which was created in Adobe after effects. this was my final idea which i actually went ahead and made.to construct this ident I used free stock footage of a panning shot of the Big Ben building in London and tracked the shot using the motion tracker in after effects which then allowed me to create a 3D camera which would further allow me to add text to a wall without the text moving with the camera shot.

I like this ident, I think it came out how I planned it to I wanted to aim at a more mature audience from around 20 - 30 years old, I think I achieved it as it looks quite stylish and modern but also looks to a professional standard. I experimented a lot with the motion tracking side by playing with the text in various positions on the different  colourful star like things that you get once you've tracked the footage I also experimented a lot with the colour and font of the text as I didn't want to have a comical type font  with bright rainbow colours because I'm not aiming at toddlers. 

There are only a couple of things that i don't really like about it, for instance I would have liked to spend more time trying to get the perfect font colour and font so it would blend more smoothly to the background, I would have also liked to shot my own footage so I can have more to work with. 

Part of the Shot List for the Single Camera Drama

 First scene is black until. White screen fade to camera, which is out of focus.  Zoom out to reveal room and characters inside.

Keep focusing in and out to give the effect that the guy in the chair is waking up.

POV of the potato bag being shaken around 

Wide shot of the room and we see the anonymous character wall over to the bagged victim 

Close up on the victim in the chair crying

over the shoulder shot of the victim looking at the anonymous figure trough the potato sack

two shot of the two body guards looking at each other

over the shoulder shot of the guard walking over and handing the drink to Albert 

we see a POV shot of the bag coming off of the victims head 

close up of Alberts hand, Handing over a drink to Johnny (the victim)

over the shoulder on track and dolly of the conversation 

for the first flashback we see a car pull up in a multi story building 

multiple shot of  all the characters in the car including Johnny from the back of  the car

back to over the shoulder for another short conversation

medium shot of the characters getting out of the car. 

After Effects Lesson 1: basic introduction

First Composition

This was the first composition that I created with Adobe After Effects. this composition taught me the basic six steps to an After Effects workflow, it taught me  how to import different file types into after effects like  PSD file (Photoshop document), MOV files(quicktime movie file), we were shown the After Effects interface and were taught how to use and navigate around it, arranging layers adding effects, animation, previewing my piece and then finally rendering and outputting the final composition.

so when i  first opened up Adobe After Effects CS6 i had to hold down on the keyboard Command +option +shift all at the same time to restore the default preferences settings, we then had to click ok to delete the preferences file, we then clicked close and closed the welcome screen to an empty After Effects screen with an untitled project. An After Effects project is a single file which keeps references to all footage that is used in the current project, it also contains compositions which is like a container which combines various different layers to produce from something as simple as text moving across the screen to a car explosion with multiple flying bits of 3d debris.

An important part of the After Effects navigation is the info panel, the info panel is where After Effects likes to record everything you are importing in, it also shows you if your importing a PSD file and will show how many layers are inside and will import as a composition so if anything needs to be altered like the anchor point or you might need to change the colour, position and so on.

To create a new composition you first need to (if on Mac OS) press command + N (or CTRL +click, windows) or drag your file to the little showreel type button at the bottom of the info panel. or you could simply drag files into the box below next to the timeline which will create a new composition automatically.

this ident showed me the basic steps of the after effects workflow which will help me to later develop a much more complicated but effective ident.