Initial terrible scribbles and ramblings

This week has been a complete mess.

I've been attempting to throw down something vaguely resembling an idea, but my head is in such a terrible place right now and it's feeling pretty daunting. I always find idea generation ridiculously stressful for some reason... I think that's why I tend to completely fall apart towards the beginning of a project. I like to just be told what to do. Damn.

Oh well.

Anyway, kicking off from where we left off last time (endless ramblings), I'll shove up what horrible doodles I've done and blither endlessly about the crap ideas I've had thus far.

First up I was... messing around with a magician. I have no idea why. Maybe that's why it bothers me. It's not relevant or appropriate, it's just silly. And also predictable. Yeah.. I struggled. I'm sorry.

I was kind of just toying with this magician on-stage, maybe trying to conjure up a rabbit from a hat. It got really predictable from there on out — first thought was that maybe the rabbit just goes berserk as the magician's holding him, then just as it launches, screaming, the curtain drops with a huge "4" on it.

Other thought was that maybe he's trying to pull a rabbit out, and you see the ears, but he struggles and tugs and yanks but it's stuck. When he finally gets it out, it's actually an ENORMOUS number 4 which flies up, then crashes back down and crushes him.

I don't know. I'm not keen. I guess that it could possibly be fun — design and visually the stage could be very pretty. It might even be possible to do something similar to one of my absolute favourite shorts from Farnham's 2011 showreel — I've never been able to track down the original, which is disappointing, but the visuals are absolutely stunning.

It could be fun and interesting to try and replicate something similar (albeit on a far simpler scale) with the magician. The design as-is of course is a HUGE pile of tripe, but if I were to replicate the sort of newspaper cutout/British Gas-type feel it might work quite nicely. 

I think I'd also need to scrap the whole predictable rabbit thing (though again, if the visuals were nice enough, perhaps it wouldn't matter so much that the idea is boring and generic?) and try to just have fun with the magician himself. Not sure how the 4 would play into it. Oy vey.

But, yeah, character designs are boring and crap and stiff and I hate them. I think I'm trying to shoehorn myself too much into one specific visual style already. I might go back to this but with the above example in mind...

The characters and movement truly are utterly astonishing. Small touches like the flapping legs, as if they're loose, just hanging... puppets. The sound effects are gorgeous, too, I love the "flip" as everything pops up. It's brilliant.

One scene in particular, here in the bar, might be really nice to reference. We can already see the tone is set with this eerie pinkish lighting. Perhaps something similar, with a more purplish hue, would help to "brand" things a bit better?

Really gorgeous detail on the puppets here. Now I feel scared again.

Second page. More crappy magicians, but then I just said "zark it' and started drawing birds. I had a sort of nice thought in my head that made me giggle at the time but looking back on it, it remains boring and predictable...

I thought of these two little birds kind of sitting in a nest, or a cage? Maybe one is on his own. He's flitting and hopping about, being a bird, and every cheep he makes sounds like an "E!" So he's cheeping and bouncing, then a second bird comes in. This one white, bigger, deeper voice? This one goes "FOUR." So yeah... you see where this is going.

I thought perhaps a BIG huge ugly kind of monster bird could then swoop down and... eat the cute little birds. Then it burps up or squawks an "E4."

Yeah, I told you it was boring.

I also couldn't come up with anything for the big huge bird. I couldn't seem to draw anything that looked even vaguely decent, so have some more ugly drawingd and a weird crosseyed monster.

I don't know. I think that it would be a nice idea to just... animate something pretty. The birds, if done right, could look and move really nicely. I was looking a lot at some vector illustrations of Twitter birds to get a feel for the style. Something simple and vectorish, I was thinking, but again I don't know if I'm trying too hard to shoehorn myself into that style because I love how it looks. Perhaps I need to not worry and just try what comes naturally.

Trying (too hard) to illustrate that bird thing. At the time I liked the design of the two little birds, but maybe that's cause it was such a bad week and I was feeling proud for having managed to pull something out of my backside.

I got REALLY stuck here and started playing with another idea — giant egg, hatches into 4 logo.

Boring, got stuck, hated it, gave up immediately. I went for a walk, and something else (equally poopy) popped into my brain. I liked it at the time, and I thought it was funny, but again... it's nonsensical (in a bad way) and just a bit predictable.

 A... big fat fly, on a treadmill. Running, panting, then it gets faster and faster and he slips, gets caught on the belt and whizzes round like a gazillion times. It finally comes to a halt, and the "splat" of his lovely goopy innards is the logo. His wings and  eyes and stuff are still stuck in the mess. Maybe we see them flap and buzz just before the end. That might be nice. I don't know. Probably not.

REALLY bad drawings. Sat there for hours and just couldn't force anything (oh how I tried!) so I feel really disappointed in myself. Top right was a last-ditch attempt to produce something in terms of a "style" but I think it's too early to be doing that. Again, when I saw it in my head, I was picturing a really flat, simple colour scheme with everything in shades of purple and white. I did the image in my head NO justice at all and I just... I dunno, my heart and head weren't in it.

I think I'm trying too hard to mimic what good ideas have been done before. I've said before that I'm crap at ideas — I'm really just looking for something with an excuse to do some really pretty animation. That's all I'm really even vaguely adequate at.

The biggest problem is lack of direction. None of these particularly fit with the demographic — they're just kind of random, stupid ideas tossed around on some paper in a vague attempt to be pretty and "HUR DUR RANDUM." Which is okay, when done correctly. Here, they are not. 

The only one with enough spark, I think, is the magician. Even though I hate it so far I think with the right tweaking and enough visual direction it could actually look really, really nice. The idea of the "puppet" sort of style might actually be enough of a concept in itself. We're puppets of entertainment — slaves to the media, television, radio, celebrities. We're easily amused by simple tricks and mindless entertainment, such as pulling rabbits out of hats (or crap TV in this instance), so when something big and huge and exciting comes along the effect is astronomical. That could be E4 in this instance? Maybe the magician's dull routine is disrupted by the magnificent entry of the grand, glowing Channel 4 somehow.

Previously I think I was veering too much in the direction of things exploding, splattering, being destroyed to reveal the logo — which is fine and dandy and effective if done right, but to give it some context I think it would be better to stick with the idea that E4 is a ray of sunshine in otherwise dull existences. The target demographic is largely young adults — particularly females — but there's enough variety to cater for a huge range of tastes. Channel 4 is something that can transport them out of the real world and provides some sort of escapism. So... let's look at highlighting that.

Okay, rambling over. Let's go do some stuff. Hopefully...

Initial thoughts, ideas and existing idents

Awkward first post ahoy!

Back into my monstrous blogging habits for the new term, it would seem. I tend to use these for personal reflection and improvement as opposed to a professional showcase of my work, so things tend to be pretty informal. And smelly.

Had a rather lovely (though vaguely terrifying) introduction to the unit this morning, so I thought it'd be a good idea to jot down some initial notes and ideas and such so they're burned forever into my brain.

I've actually surprised myself by getting a couple of ideas reasonably quickly — that isn't to say they're not crap, but... it's a start. I think. Oh dear, now I'm worrying again.

Anyhow, quick notes relating to the brief:

• Either a 20 second ident/sting for Channel 4/personal showreel/approved channel of your choice, or two ten second stings for the same.
• NO TITLES — only a single image title card at the beginning for identification purposes.
• Keep it simple, striking and effective, with appropriate soundtrack — all elements to be polished to a high standard.

I've opted into the After Effects specialism, so I'm shooting for something two-dimensional. I'm uncertain as to whether I'll go for two short stings or one longer one. As I said, I've had a couple of ideas — they're pretty loose and could be easily fitted into any sort of branding with the right visual direction. I'm hoping that's a good thing! the ideas aren't tied to any particular brand, but in essence that all seems to come from the visual treatment and colour palettes. Looking at most of the E4 stings they're pretty abstract and absurd and, if stripped of all that iconic purple and white, could feasibly be an advert for shampoo or whatever. It's the colours and the logo that really "sell" the sting as belonging to E4.

I'll probably just tinker, do some doodling and some visual mockups (if I get time) and see how best I can fit my ideas into the stings. I'm leaning more towards the E4 option, simply because (as Stuart very rightly said) it's good to impose some restrictions. In essence, most of the design stuff is taken care of. We have a colour palette handed to us and the logo, allowing us freedom to really focus on other aspects of the design and execution.

Does that make any sense? No? didn't think so!

Anyhow, before I go rambling off into infinite, I had a poke around the E4 website and had a look at some stuff that's been done before. Being user-generated content, the quality is wild and inconsistent, but there are some lovely, shiny gems in there.

(E4's video player is HORRIBLE, and embedding doesn't work for some reason, so I'm having to link to the videos in a very unprofessional manner. Sorry.)

http://www.e4.com/video/Ew1F2qfPUhUccRqz3DEWsG/play.e4

Pretty much the first one I clicked on because the thumbnail looked pretty. I like the idea and the visual direction is going the right way, but I'm really not so hot on the writing in the sky... it's pretty, certainly, but not very fitting for E4. It doesn't communicate the brand identity that strongly, possibly because the only sight of the actual logo is very small and on the bottom of the frame. It could work, but I think it's because the eye is drawn to what the plane is doing, so the logos don't stand out. Perhaps it would have been better to somehow incorporate the logo into the plane's sky writing? That said, it is really quite lovely and the animation is great!

http://www.e4.com/video/al14Y7ZMEBOPSHqsgvvgk/play.e4

There really aren't many 2D examples on the site, so I saw this one's thumbnail and had a look. It's... interesting. Not too sure what to make of it. It's kind of funny but I'm not sold on it. I like the spacehopper — that's an idea in and of itself (that makes three!) — but it's a bit chaotic with lots going on. Doesn't communicate the brand at all strongly. The picture book style is very nice, and like I said the spacehopper works well to kind of bring the brand into it, but otherwise it's a bit unfocused. The whole spaceship thing is pretty fitting, so you could even just have a big, huge city with zombies around and maybe the E4 spaceship destroys everything? Then you get a bit of pretty logo-age and all is well. Maybe.

https://www.e4.com/video/TvNp9ZdD3JpOeAPg7zs3Q/play.e4

 It's tricky to know what kind of visual approach to take... At first, looking at all these entries, there really is such an absurd fluctuation in style. A lot of entries don't seem to have imposed any self-restrictions and use unlimited colours with very detailed (for 10 seconds, at least) scenarios and characters. The branding isn't especially strong. Looking at the winners section, the work becomes much more focused. The branding is clear and strong, simple one-idea scenarios, typically with limited colour palettes and very basic character design (with the exception of Cyriak's winning entry, but the guy is pretty spectacular so no surprises there!)

https://www.e4.com/video/wEOYVY5ClXd7wJrvUI1b3/play.e4

Another runner up from '09, I think. This one's really nice, I love how they've inversed the use of E4's typical white and purple. For the time I imagine it worked really well, but I wonder how well it would sit alongside the brand today. It's gotten much more minimalistic in recent years and the extra colours might not sit comfortably alongside other idents today which tend to be much brighter. It's also tricky to know whether such a flat 2D style is appropriate for the brand. It may just be due to the influx of 3D animation on the channel — it's pretty dominating — so maybe something comprising After Effects' faux-3D stuff would be more appropriate...
 

http://www.e4.com/video/BVRiCAumq8t7FmlIO7dBC/play.e4

This one is really, really nice. Perhaps not the most striking, but the simple visuals and morphing is a pretty cool concept. It could also be taken to represent Channel 4's broad viewership and audience!

http://www.e4.com/video/258xmMyRs8QAx3KlE5y8O8/play.e4

Okay, so it's another 3D one but it was a winner in 2008 and clearly demonstrates the kind of thing E4 are looking for. A simple concept, pretty abstract — such limited colours with all the focus on branding and the animation. It's polished. There's no core narrative or story or concept, just a little dude playing some cymbals being really pretty. The logo is splattered throughout and it's in keeping with the channel's theme and audience. Splendid!

http://www.e4.com/video/SsBy2ALkNZz5tJFDn9TwXX/play.e4

This one struck me because it got me thinking a little more about one of my own ideas. I was kinda thinking of going with some sort of 2D retro video or arcade game style feel — maybe Space Invaders or even Tetris — and this one, though it's not as shiny and pretty as some of the others, is a really nice idea and executed well. You've got the blocky, pixellated text. I would perhaps have emphasised the purple and white somehow? But again, it's relevant to the audience and the channel. Next stage in research for me is definitely to look into that... though judging by some of the idents the audience is comprised of absurdist anarchists who like zombies and stuff getting blown up. Not necessarily a bad thing, mind!

Last one, just to round off...

http://www.e4.com/video/N0GSxUZSbYlDz97vMxhIqz/play.e4

Again, this is a tricky one! I kinda like the style and the idea. The colour is used rather nicely and it's pretty distinctive... something doesn't sit right with me though and I'm not sure what it is. It might be the boy's design... it just puts me off. I have no idea. Something about the piece just "feels" a bit... squiffy. Agh.