Ident remake

Due to the feedback i received about my previous ident i decided to make another more professional ident which used more of my after effects based skills i went with one of my other ideas which was originally intended to be a door with a nameplate on it and people walking in the background but i though it may infect draw attention away from the nameplate which i would intend to be the focus. 

I started out with just a nameplate from google and i put it into Photoshop once in photoshop i used the magic wand tool and removed the background and holes in the plate then i saved it as a photoshop file.

Next i imported the PSD file as a Composition i also dragged it onto the new composition i then added text using the icon and wrote out the name JCProduction on it i set the timeline to 0 and set the opacity to 0 on both the text and PSD files transform option then i changed the option to 100 at 1 second to give it a fade in appearence i then decided to put a camera flare on the text layer to create the shimmering effect i wanted after fiddling around with its settings i had the look i was after i also made the flare move across the writing over 1 second then i added an extra keyframe on opacity and made it fade out.

With everything completed i finally decided to change the nameplate's colour so i typed into effects colour finesse and applied it to the nameplate psd i opened the full interface and began to play around with the image and as a result got a darker grey which made the writing stand out and look more effective.                                  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSvNDSvf7d0&feature=youtu.be

I like this Ident more than my Scary Door Production ident because this one forced me to use more of my after effects skills such as the layering of text which made me ensure that it was on the top layer or else it wouldn't of been visible i also enjoy using the colour grading now and being able to change the complete look of an image.

Viral Advert

Theses are some photos i took during the editing stage of the viral advert the first thing i did was use the warp stabilizer because some of the footage was not steady enough once i had stabilized it i ran it through some color correction in which i tried to bring out the reds more including the hair color and the brightness of the Dr. Pepper label to make it stand out the main problem i encountered was that when i made the colors more red it also effected the skin color turning it a very saturated orange. But overall i wanted it to have a almost vintage feel like the old days of Dr. Pepper advertising which is why i used a previous slogan "trust me i'm a doctor" instead of there newest slogan "whats the worst that could happen" and i think i overall achieved this "vintage" Theme.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0M3e9ttEO0w

Viral Advert Pre Production

Viral Advert Ideas

Vans Idea Sketch
For my Vans Idea it will feature lots of van pictures the same van in plenty of locations that will then be cut together to give it the feeling of motion i will then plan to photoshop the Vans name/logo to each picture on the last image i will put the name in after effects instead i will then keyframe and fade the opacity and i will then adjust the X and Y of the name making it move and increase in size the cover the screen.

Skittles Idea Sketch

This is one of my basic undeveloped ideas for skittles the idea is that the entire clip is in slow motion as skittles begin to fall this could be either real skittles or a Png file that rotates on the X and Y axis and i will keyframe the X and Y a man will then jumps into the shot and eat the skittles the screen then fades and Skittles tittle appears.










Dr. Pepper Idea Sketch
After Briefly drawing up and having a basic idea i decided to run with my Dr. Pepper idea I've began the planning stage of my pre production and have a rough idea my idea is to make a viral advert for Dr. Pepper it will be a piece of footage i will shoot then i will colour grade it and add some animations in. This is a basic sketch that includes some of the details i hope to include.

Plan

I will Shoot some footage on A DSLR of a Female drinking Dr Pepper from a bottle I then i will take the footage sand import it into After Effects and colour grade it increasing Red the Gain in of the RGB channels which should give it a Vintage feel when I've colour graded it i will add some .png images from the internet of the Dr. Pepper brand including some drinks and the logo i will then use the text button to write in my slogan "Trust me I'm a Doctor" of the drink and animate them to move by key frame the opacity and possibly the position of the X and Y axis. I plan for most of my work to be After effects based as i plan the main park of my Advert will be Footage that i have shot and only using Photoshop if there are files that still have backgrounds present in which case i would need to remove them.

The screen will start black then using opacity I will fade in the footage and start it playing if this doesn't work my back up plan would be to do this in FCP in which I could use the fade effect from a slug when the screen fades in the fist shot play which is the female lifting the drink the camera then zooms in whilst she drinks focusing on the label Dr Pepper then after a few seconds it fades out and the pictures will fade in one at a time.

Target Audience

The target audience  for my advert is likely to be  any age above 12+ so early teens onwards as there generally the age I'm going to try to attract to drinking Dr. Pepper.

Case Study - Unit 62

Formats

Lossless is a type of Compression which when uncompressed all of the original information is completely restored which gives you the highest quality results whereas Lossy is a form of Compression that reduces a file by permanently eliminating certain redundant information therefore Lossless seems to be abetter type of compression and would result in no information lost and overall higher quality.

MPG is a extension for an MPEG animation in the MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 codec. MPEG-1 was designed for coding progressive videos at bit rates of about 1.5 million per second. MPEG-2 was designed for coding interlaced images at bit rates above 4 million bits per second.

3GP is specifically used as a video streaming format for mobile phones and can also be found in other multimedia devices.

ASF is a file format that stores audio and video information and is specially designed to run over networks like the internet.

MP4 is a format that is widely used which means a MP4 has various file name extensions that can help give clues as to what kind of content the file contains.

A MOV file is a Apple QuickTime Movie Format and is exclusive and limited to QuickTime player which means it won't open on other players making it not very useful.

AVI (Audio Video Interleaved) is a sound and motion picture file that requires a special player to be used.

WMV (Windows Media Video) is a type of video compression format which is gaining popularity as a format for Blu-ray Discs.

FLV (Flash Video) is a video format created by Adobe which works with the Flash Player as well as other FLV Players Lots of web videos use this format.

SWF is a extension for Shockwave Flash the files can contain animations and sound designed for web use.

Content Delivery

DVD is a well known Format of Content Delivery it is used world wide to play films or even basic recordings DVD's are region encoded which means that DVD's will only work on players that are meant for that region for example Region 1 is the USA, Canada and US territories which means if you get a DVD from America it wont work in any UK (region 2) DVD players and vice versa but some DVD's are meant to be viewable on any player and are classed as region 0 which means it can be viewed anywhere. Dvd's are usually formatted for television systems NTSC (USA) or PAL (Europe) These two formats are incompatible even if using a region 0 disc you will need to ensure your television can handle the format, However Many European TV sets are multi standard meaning they can display a NTSC signal.

Quicktime was originally a piece of software mainly used by Mac's to view multi media footage but recently Quicktime 7 Pro was released which not only allows you to play different multi media footage but now allows you to record and need cut down clips. Quicktime can support more format types then any other media viewer some it supports are: AVI, AVR, DV and OpenDML.
http://www.apple.com/uk/quicktime/

Windows Media Player is the basic media viewer Used on a PC with Windows Media Player 12 you an now not only use the normal formats available but it is the first windows media player that can also play Quick  time files (.mov)  MP4 audio files (.m4a) MP4 Video file (.mp4, .m4v, .mp4v, .3g2, .3gp2, .3gp and .3gpp) Windows audio files (.aac, .adt and .adts) and MPEG-2 TS Cideo files (.m2ts)
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows/windows-media-player

DivX web player supports DivX format (.divx and .avi) the H.264-based DiveX Plus can also support .mkv format and MP4 (.mp4 .m4v and .mov) The maximum Resolution for DivX Plus is 1920x1080 DivX can also be downloaded merged with Quicktime Pro for maximum Format support.
http://www.divx.com/en/software/player

Youtube is widely used for both Audio and Video and can support a wide range of formats for uploaded videos the videos YouTube supports are .MOV .MPEG4 .AVI .WMV .MPEGPS .FLV .3GPP .WebM. Youtube also have a guide on how to convert files which can then be uploaded to youtube.
https://support.google.com/youtube/troubleshooter/2888402?hl=en-GB


Mobile Devices

If you buy a Film on iTunes you can expect it to work as a full HD film Which would be a Lossless Mp4 format which is likely to be played through Apples Quicktime player as a (16:9) format 1920x1080 on Mobile devices such as an iPhone bit would still be a Lossless .MP4 format still (16:9) but would be on a smaller scale around 720x576
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/movie/the-wolf-of-wall-street/id787429884?v0=WWW-EUUK-ITSTOP100-MOVIES&l=en&ign-mpt=uo%3D4

Netflix

If you rent a movie on Netflix its likely that it will be a full lossless VC-1 (video codec) file VC-1 is often used with both HD DVD's and Blu-ray disks the aspect ratio can go up to 16:9 and is a full lossless format.
https://www.netflix.com/?locale=en-GB

Formal Elements of Motion Graphics

In this piece of work i will be looking at a few different viral videos Identifying and Assessing some of the techniques they use that i could then later use in creating my viral advert.

I looked at  The Evian Roller Babies Viral Advert First which consists of a group of babies with roller-skates dancing in a park I chose this advert for the amount of 3D elements included for example the babies are completely 3D Modelled and there are at least 10 of them dancing around which from observation looks to be the only thing that has been modelled for this advert the rest of the set looks to be footage with the CG babies added in at the end.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQcVllWpwGs&list=PL46B8A7F655780CF0


I searched around and Found some old Boomerang adverts that all feature at least 1 2D element the most obvious being the backgrounds these indents are layered cleverly to make you think that they are 3D but they are likely to be layered PSD files that are all 2D and all cross over each other which includes the cartoons and also the Boomerang Line that crosses over everything.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvGkMOS_dNg


I looked at this Apple iPod advert because it heavily features a black matte covering the RGB values of the people by first turning them alpha and then filling the alpha space which a black colour whilst the backgrounds colour remains or is changed throughout the RGB Values.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaVFCdwT0hk


RGB are three of the most basic Alpha channels RGB stands for Red Green Blue which are the basic primary colours which can be manipulated in filming to alter the different colours and give a desired effect on a piece of footage Alpha is another setting which changes the visibility aspect of something whereas adjusting the RGB will change the colour of something changing the Alpha will change the Opacity of something.

Colour Correction

This Lesson Involved us using Colour Correction we loaded some clips onto Adobe After Effects and Played around with the RGB to try to Colour Correct the clips we did this by changing the Gamma Pedestal and Gain Which Effects the lightest part of the image (Gamma) the Mid Tone like skin and clothes (Pedestal) and the dark areas like shadows (Gain) the first images are before I Corrected and changed the Wave Form values and the seconds are the results from my editing.

After Effects - Title Sequence

We were given the task of creating a moving title in after effects the first thing i did was create a new composition next i created a text box with the Text created i moved the Anchor point using the special tool next we went on Layer>New>Camera and set the Preset to 35mm next i clicked the cube box on my text layer making it 3D Then on the text i set a position keyframe at 0:00 with the Z axis at -900 i then moved to 8 frames later and changed the Z to 0 at 1 second i created another keyframe Z to 0  at 1 second 8 frames and changed Z to 1000 then between keyframe 3 and 4 i changed the opacity to 0 giving it a fade effect we then had Interpolation problems so i right clicked the second keyframe and selected Interpolation changed the Spatial Interpolation to linear and pressed ok i repeated this process on the third keyframe next i created a Radial Ramp

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY_HVD9hYik

After Effects Cameras, 3D and Parallax

In our after effects lesson we learned about Camera Projection after creating our new composition with the 4 .png files we were given we had to arrange them correctly so the sky was at the back followed by the sand and pyramids and he wall at the front we then toggled the 3D cubes on the images creating a third axis the Z axis which creates depth thus giving the 3D effect next we changed the view from active camera to Top view and changed the Z position on each image putting distance between them then we created a new camera under the layer tool and changed the camera setting to 35mm we then created a parallax by changing the focus of the camera to the background image of the sky finally by key framing the aperture i managed to create a depth of field effect as the Composition moves.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crViC8wW8Uo

I then decided using Opacity i would add in some text i keyframes 0% opacity on the text at the beginning then key framed 2 seconds and incased the opacity to 100%

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TBK8zPWeyQ

Ollie After Effects Wiggling and Stabilising

After Effects - Wiggling And Stabilising 

We were given two different pieces of footage and we had the task to correct them both the first piece of footage we had to create a shaky camera effect almost like it was handheld and the second was to shaky so we used the warp stabiliser to fix the motion so it appears more still.

Wiggling

After importing the .mov file i dragged it onto new composition once selected in the timeline i clicked the window drop down then selected Wiggler to open a new tab on the right with the footage selected i pressed "p" on the keyboard which brought up the position i key framed the clip at 14fps and at 1second  i then dragged and selected both changed the noise type on the right to Jagged and the frequency to 15 and magnitude to 25 then i typed into effects to find the Motion Tile Effect which i dragged onto the clip the changed the settings and checked the Mirror box then i exported and saved the Comp.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bOEf1wDp64

Warp Stabilising

I imputed the second .mov file into After Effects dragged it onto new composition i then clicked the drop down arrow on the right changing it to Motion Tracking i then selected the option Warp Stabiliser it brings up a box on the left in which you change "smooth Motion" to no motion and bump up the scale 1% then save and export the file

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGmcVSnc4RM

After Effects Lesson Tracking

In todays lesson i was tasked with taking a piece of footage and creating a castle image on top i attempted to do this on after effects using tracking i also had to use Photoshop to remove the background behind the castle image then i replicated the grass and using the Eraser tool i made the edges look faded so the image looked as though it was meant to be there then i put it back into after effects and put it onto of the .mov file and changed some of the saturation to try to make the colour more fitting to the scene then i exported it to youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-AMHg_Jevw&feature=youtu.be

Ident Idea 2 Sketch

This is a sketch of my second Ident idea in which your in a first person view of a man walking towards a wall the camera then becomes fixed as he places his hands out in front of him and falls smearing his hand over the wall and written in the blood smear is Blood Smear Productions.





















Next i made a plan incase i decided to make this ident i would have an easy plan to follow and help guide me trough the process of making it.

finally i wrote down the Sound and camera movements that would feature in this ident which was quite simple as there is only a couple of sound effects and most of the movement is fixed.




















Because this Idea consists of footage it is mainly 3D but when the hand will smear down the wall i will have to put in a 2D text layer onto of the blood saying Blood Smear Productions i am unsure how to make the text appear other then key framing the opacity in the transform options this could be difficult to do though unless i try to rotor-scope the hand to put it as a different layer to the wall and then put the text on the wall i will have to look further into this if i choose it as my final idea.

Ident Idea 3 Sketch

This is my final Idea for Blood Smear Productions the plan for this Ident is quite easy to follow i also think this is a rather easy Ident to do and perfect this is the Ident i would be most likely to make.



For this idea the Camera does not move and stats still completely but this idea would feature more sound then all of my other Ident ideas using a subtle horror humming tune in the back ground also other Sound Effects would be needed like a smearing sound on glass and a loud almost slapping sound on the door.


The door in this idea will be a 2D layer whilst the actual hand would be 3D its likely i would cut the hand on the glass from the original footage and put it on a more appropriate 2D png door from the internet this could create a problem for the hand though so i might need to use a matte for the area behind the hand to give me the visual look i would like.

Ident Completed

Ident

I took my final idea and put it into action i got a picture from the internet of an office door it took me along time to find the one i wanted and whilst looking at pictures it began to make me change my mind and then i did a storyboard based on my new idea.

I originally had 3 production names i could use JCP Productions, Blood Smear Productions and Scary Door Productions these were my choices once i found the door picture i really liked my idea changed i decided to change the idea completely to Scary Door productions with the picture selected i put it into Adobe Photoshop and removed its background then i saved the picture as a JPEG once i saved it i played around the gradient option and swapped it essentially giving it the complete opposite colours black>white white>black i then saved this as another picture after i put it into After effects and began the editing stage i made it around 8-9 seconds long and started with just the original picture of the door which i changed the Opacity so it gave a fade in effect then after a few seconds it swaps to the second door (the one with the gradient effects) and then i made it so toward the end that door then fades out by again changing the opacity i then put its in the render Que then for the final step i put the ident into Final Cut Pro i then used a screaming sound i found online on a royalty free website and i placed it on the moment the door changes and finally i exported it as a quicktime file and put it on youtube.

My Completed Ident

Evaluation
I think that my ident went well considering i haven't been using After Effects for long i like the whole concept and idea of the ident and i especially like it when the Gradient changes the only problem i think is the theme of the ident it could severely limit what productions i can do as the ident is a horror theme and would seem unsuitable if i use it for say a kids film.

After Effects Lesson 1

After Effects Lesson 1

The Task

In our first after effects lesson we were given the task of creating

After opening Ae you are presented with a blank screen the first thing we did was import the files already given to us we went to File > Import > Choose File we then located the various .mov and mp3 files we then had to select a different type of file a psd (Photoshop Document) with the psd selected we had to change the import to Composition this allows you to change/edit the individual layers of the image with all the files imported we selected the bgwtext Composition along with the dancers,gc_adobe_dance,kaleidoscope_waveforms and pulsating_radial_waves footage items then you drag them onto the timeline panel and i creates a new composition after the you select composition > composition settings you then change the duration of the composition and enter 1:15 and click ok  then click the layers and rename then appropriately click the Dancers layer then go into the effects panel and search radial blur once found drag it onto the layer then change the radial blur's amount option to 200 then go back to effects and type in exposure it will be under colour correction then you drag it onto the dancers then you click the Triangle next to the effect showing settings that can be changed then click the triangle next to master then change the exposure enter 1.60 which will make the image brighter and more exposed 

Ident Idea 1 Sketch

This is the basics of my first ident idea which was where I will focus on a plaque saying J.C.P Productions on a door whilst focusing on this silhouettes of people will walk past I  then sketched it out and labeled the important parts all movement is highlighted by arrows

This is a step by step plan of what will happen in the ident to make it clearer if I decide to use this ident and then underneath I wrote about the camera movements that would take place for this idea it was quite easy as the camera just stays still and only has a small zoom effect

Finally I had a thought about the sound that would be featured in this ident I decided to go for a basic set of office sounds and muffle them so they were not to overpowering and steal the attention.

This idea would consist of 4 2D Elements that would be layered cleverly to make the Ident look 3D the first layer would be the door which is the main focus and the glass part of the door would be have to be edited out of on Photoshop then replaced with something more transparent but still looking like glass next would be the silhouettes that would keyframe there positions and then i would alter the X setting after a few seconds to make them move past each other i will place then bellow the door/glass combo on the after effects timeline which would layer them behind the glass and door giving the wanted effect of people walking past the door.

Ident Pre-Production

Ident Pre-Production

The Task

We were given the task to create our own functional Ident to use for anything we produce in college the Ident must be unique and not directly copy another existing Ident we must create our Ident using Adobe After Effects.

Target Audience

My ideal target audience is young adults between 18-28 because the things I produce I want to be aimed at older audiences and I think my Ident would need to reflect that also its easier for me to reach people around my age rather then a younger or a lot older audience.

 

Mind Map of Ideas

These are the four possible ideas I came up with for my Ident I think I like idea 2, 3 and 4 the best and these are the three I will now take further.

Existing Ident's

Existing Idents

What is an Ident?

Station identification (Ident) is in basic terms a moving logo usually shown on TV channels such as Channel4, ITV, MTV, CBeebies, ect. Idents could last anything between 5 seconds to 30 seconds depending on the channel and their audience most Idents are just to remind you what channel you’re watching but most of the time there not long enough to make you lose interest or want to change over.

Channel4

Channel4 has a cool and complex design to their Ident as the camera moves these random floating blocks from one angle turn out to be the number 4 at another angle the picture to the right is the Channel4 Ident I chose to look at which is 28 seconds long like most Idents this one creates an identity for the channel for example if you were to show this to people they would probably know what channel it’s from so they have created a worldwide image and achieved world renown for this special design of Ident there is quite a big limitation with this Ident in particular because its 28 seconds long which means you would need to have a lot of patience to watch this Ident but you could make it more bearable by having someone talk over the top saying what’s on next or you could try to cut it shorter but the problem with cutting this Ident is it may lose its achieved effect of everything coming together.

 CBeebies

The next Ident to look at is completely different from the Channel4 Ident and that’s because of the difference in audience this Ident is only 19 seconds so it’s around 9 seconds shorter then Channel4. The Ident starts with just 2 blobs climbing over each other simple but effective then after a quick transition there are lots of yellow blobs playing around and the title of CBeebies it mainly targets its audience by being playful and bright which would draw in a child or people of young ages also if parents saw the Ident they might think the channel is suitable for their children which would ultimately increase their audience this Ident is also very limited for example this would work great for bringing in people of a younger age but on teenager this wouldn’t work I don’t think that many teenagers would want to watch this channel after seeing this Ident so it limits there target audience but in saying that as I said earlier some parents might want to watch this with their children but mainly this restricts the channel to only children or very young people’s programmes. 

ITV

This is one of ITV’s Ident’s called “Pugwash” ITV are famous for how simple their actual ident’s are for example you have “itv” come in there’s no real complex design to it this Ident  is around 30 seconds which is really long for an Ident but it seems quite easy to cut it if needs be unlike channel 4 but without cutting this Ident down I think that no matter who the audience is it might make them lose interest but I think that point is up for argument because they decide to put in a “cute” dog being washed in a sink which could actually keep the audience’s attention I would think that ITV has a worldwide audience because I know personally they have shown for all age ranges but this Ident in particular targets a younger age and at risk of sounding sexist I think it leans more towards female who would find this sort of thing cute which although it helps target their audience it also restricts it and might be placed incorrectly for example if it’s put on before a show a man might be watching they might be put off by this Ident.

Comedy Central

Next I Looked at a Comedy Central Ident this Ident was a lot shorter than I expected this Ident is only 15 seconds long but that may be down to the channel considering is a comedy channel with funny entertaining show they might only want a short Ident so you don’t want to turn the channel over the Ident consists of the Comedy central Icon rolling on a train and a bridge simple but effective I don’t think that this Ident has any restrictions I think due to the fact it’s you could probably replace the Logo with that of ITV or Channel 4 but not CBeebies because I think that this Ident seems mature and sophisticated which a child probably wouldn’t enjoy watching this and may find it boring so I think that this targets a mature audience maybe from about 18+ but I personally don’t get this I mean it’s a Ident for a comedy channel so I think it should be funny so I think this Ident is slightly misleading.

MTV

Next I looked at a MTV Ident at 28 Seconds long which is longer than expected consider it’s a music channel the Ident  features four birds on a line singing different notes then a fifth bird comes along playing a really high note then the bird actually explodes I think that this is maybe the most misleading Ident I have seen because it’s quite graphic it starts the birds are colourful happy and playing a nice tune then one just explodes I personally think that it starts out looking suitable for children to watch and they would like it but if a child watches the bird blow up it may not like it whereas older audiences may find it funny so I think this is majorly restricted to an older audience which is a bad idea to do considering that it’s a music channel and would like to have a broad audience.

 BBC

Next I looked at a BBC Ident the Ident was only 19 seconds long but I was surprised to see how boring the content actually was even though the image to the right looks interesting it wasn’t the Ident consisted of a flock of flamingos that’s all then the BBC name comes up very basic and really puts you off the programs that are coming up I would actually change the channel if this came on but to improve it I would cut it to at least 7 seconds long I think the main reason I didn’t like it maybe that it targets an older more sophisticated age then myself but clearly this Ident limits the channel.

20th Century Fox
The Final Ident I looked at was for 20th Century Fox I think the Design of this Ident is both clever and simple  because at first look you think its basic but after looking at it again you begin to realise all the small details involved but I doubt with my level of After Effects knowledge I could create this Ident I think the Purpose of this Ident was to create a global recognisable brand that everyone would know when they saw it The Intent of this Ident is to grip peoples attention and establish the company allowing them to be recognised by this Ident.

Perry Mccarthy Ident

Ident Evaluation

I was given the task to create a 5 second Ident for Perry Mccarthy the original Stig on Adobe After Effects I had mixed feelings about this task as this is my first time using After Effects for a project after I started getting my ideas out I got more confident with the creating of this Ident I think my Ident was rather good for a first attempt I’m happy with its content as I thought I wouldn’t of been able to make something like that with only little knowledge of After Effects I think if I were to do it again I would take longer with using Photoshop to edit the Psd files before putting them in the Ident but overall I’m happy with this Ident and didn’t find it that hard to do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TdnJ6QZ6es&feature=youtu.be