E Sting Evaluation

The project brief was to create an e4 ident (basically a channel advert ) and by working out the demographics of e4 create an advert to fit the genre,  age and something suitable to air. The advert had to be created using some form of animation.  We ended up creating a mortal combat stop motion style e4 advert, we used Photoshop to create the e4 logos and the beams at the end. This was layered over the original set of photos of the fight.

You can view the ‘brilliant’ finished product here at -

We asked people what could be improved about our ad. The two main points for improvement are the flow of the animation and the exploration of stop motion could go further. The flow could be improved if more shots were taken and closer together between movements, This would help the style and the flow as with more shots would create a smoother run when sped up. I understand we could of also played with techniques to make the fight more technical. We could of used slides and flips quite effectively and due to constraints and time this wasn’t thought of so the action presented may seem a little basic.

 

What came across as the most outstanding feature of our work according to other media students was the Photoshopped effects for the e4 logo at the end, something which I thought was quite funny and cool ! also they said that the fluidity and style felt like an old ‘beat em up’ game with the juddered movements and the retro graphics.   

 

For our e sting there are lots of outlets for the work to be shown off. In particularly the internet allows you to reach a vast very mixed audience spanning all corners of the globe. Websites such as YouTube and Vimeo give a platform to all works to be shown to people with common interests. Being a short video even apps such as vine or Instagram allow you to post your work.

 

There are constraints in any non major production unless of course you make something simple and minimalistic. The problems we faced when creating our e sting where the financial difficulties, e.g having to borrow costumes and film in not an ideal location. The legal work was just working to the e4 guidelines using the provided music and the e4 trademark logo.

We could of managed the timing of our project a lot better. Obviously working in a group you rely on people and sometimes they cant come in and sometimes I wasn’t available so organisation could of helped. We also could of worked out a better schedule for filming as I was busy making the e4 graphics and also appeared in the animation. We had a period also at the start of the project where it was hard for us to think up an idea, so the planning and discussion over what our e sting was took longer than it needed.

As I briefly touched on in the legal requirements for the e sting it had to be no long then 10 seconds, it had to contain the e4 logo and use the given music. We even conformed to the requirements when adding sound effect, not letting it overpower the theme music. We also created it in the style they asked as an animation style e sting with no recordings or long takes.

We received feedback from a number of people yet I managed to lose some of the responses.. the ones saved were the most important, outlining the positives and negatives of the work. Everyone thought that the retro game style of the animated e sting was really good even if the graphics and flow of the piece could have been done a lot better. The flow of the fight could have been done better as with the location but with the graphics as a whole I think it fits the style of and e sting.

 

 

 

 

Finished e4 Ident

Research & Planning

E4 launched in January 2001 as a pay-tv channel, the British channel E4 was made to accompany the free view owner channel, channel 4. E4, in 2005, joined 4 in becoming a Freeview channel in order to increase its advertising revenue and attract more viewers.  The most popular series aired on e4 was the Inbetweeners which at a peak pulled 3.7 million viewers, other shows on E4 include the Big Bang Theory, Friends and … Glee. The primary demographic is clearly teens to the middle aged this is due to the high content of comedies and the nature of the jokes intended, as in Jay from the inbetweeners bullshit stories. A large majority of the actor from the programmes on e4 are in the demographic age range, and e4 even made a T4 block where from certain times programmes specifically for teens are broadcast. Other channels owned by the channel 4 conglomerate are 4seven, more4, film4, 4+1, 4music and also the radio stations KISSfm and Kerrang!

An E sting is basically an ident for e4 to show the audience what channel they are watching, it give the channel some identity to make it stand out from the crowd, the ident could also coincide with the target audience and relates to the types of shows on the channel.     

http://estings.e4.com/entry/e4-dentist-esting

The dentist e-sting shows a boy pulling out his e4 tooth, the stop motion animation works well with the channel. It is random comedy which fits the channels persona. The audience for this ad would be people around my age due to the comedic content and how it was portrayed, personally I think its one of the best I’ve seen, due to the content, style (stop motion) and simplicity.

http://estings.e4.com/entry/sweet-shop

Sweet shop is another cool e-sting I found. This is a hand drawn animation put together on Photoshop. I like the comedy involved in this as its very random, I think all random e-sting are aimed at the teen target audience as this style is most appealing in the comedy. It fits the channel well due to the random reverse rolls of the lady licking a e4 lolly then in the end the e4 character licks her as a lollypop, this role reversal works well as it captures attention and makes you remember the channel.

http://estings.e4.com/entry/live

Live is and e-sting of a 7 second clip of piglets suckling their mother pig. This again is very random. What I like about this e-sting is that it is just funny in itself, there was no fancy programmes or editing involved it was literally just a video from his phone. There are a lot of viral videos of animals on the internet, so obviously they attract attention due to the comedic style of just the animal. I think in teens we find these animals videos funny as well, they’re animals and this one would certainly make you remember the channel, “OMG, HAVE YOU SEEN THE E4 PIGLETS” – That’s what people would say.

 

To prepare for creating an easting we tried a variety of animation techniques from 1800’s to practices still used today. We made Thaumatropes, Praxinoscopes and Zoetropes, which are all repetitive sequences of images like a GIF. This also gave us practice if would want to make a hand drawn e-sting and stitch it together in Photoshop. In addition to this we tried Claymation and stop motion (live action). This now prepares us by using photos and frames to create a moving picture, this opens up a lot of possibilities for our e-sting.

 

 

Stop Motion Animation (Part 3)

Stop Motion Animation is used over lots of different platforms and occurs in many different ways from; claymation, live action, pose-able character stop motion. In this post im going to show you some evidence of how vastly it is used.

TV
My favorite example of stop motion animation in TV would be foul languaged Angry Kid which features on youtube in a series of around 25 shorts.


Films
My favourite example of stop motion being used to coincide with live action in a film would be Jason and the Argonauts, this is really impressive and inovative concidering it was made in 1963, especially the scene where he fights the stop motion skeletons so.. enjoy this clip of Jason and the Skeleton fights.


Adverts
Stop motion animation is still very much so used media text because of the different nature of the product. Its used in adverts and is really atention grabbing, unlike the plain jane normal adverts this one captures your eye as its something out of the ordinary!


Music Videos
Stop motion is even still used in music videos like Steriograms - Walkie Talkie man. this video was a huge hit when it came out for the use of the choppy stop motion coinciding with the live action. The video automatically boosted the songs popularity and if you take a second to scroll down to the youtube comments its full of people complimenting the video still showing us that it is a style people enjoy!


Channel Idents
There have been a few channel idents that incorporate the stop motion style. The channel most regularly using stop motion medias would be E4 with its E-sting idents. The E-stings are made by people at home and are used as idents by the channel. People sometimes choose to use this stop motion as a style of E-sting, this is probably due to the attention grabbing quality's that a stop motion text carries as its not a style that is usually used.


Who is Stop Motion aimed at?
I don't believe that stop motion animation has a specific audience demographic as that would depend on the production, however i do believe the majority of productions are aimed at the middle aged and backwards. For example Wallace and Gromit i think would be aimed at children but doesn't discourage adults from enjoying it as well. Other shows such as South Park have a more targeted audience with its outlandish humor so would be aimed at a more adult audience from late teens to young adults. I think it would be perceived as that stop motion is aimed at children from the cartoon like characteristics it holds, which would comply with some older children's shows such as Postman Pat or The Wombles or even Bob The builder but i think it is a style that any age can enjoy.

The future of Stop Motion animation
like any form of art i don't believe it would die out as its a different style and people always like different! its something that is embedded in what we do as with anything people like to use traditional methods as a photographer, just because there is a brand new camera out wont necessarily use it they may opt to revert to using a film camera because of the effect or style of the photo which i believe would be the same for stop motion animation. People enjoy the raw skills it takes to produce something like stop motion and with all the effects and tricks that come with it which may not be capable of doing whilst using another media text. A notable film released in 2009 was the stop motion re make of The Fantastic Mr. Fox which shows that its still a text which is still used up to this present day.

Stop Motion Animation (Part 2)

George Pal
George pal the patienter of Pal-Doll stop motion animation was born in 1908. Pal-Doll was stop motion animation using figures with interchangeable parts to give them movement. After fleeing Germany from the Nazi's and moving to america, Pal created an animated series called 'Puppetoons' which won him an Oscar in 1943. George Pal later went on to work on an adaptation of Hg Welles The War Of The Worlds. 
Willis O'Brien
Willis O'Brien used a combination of stop motion and actual film footage to create films. He is described on Wikipedia as an 'American motion picture special effects and stop-motion animation pioneer' . The greatest achievement in his career is the Classic King Kong which was made by blacking out half of a film and projecting the stop motion King Kong over the top to create a full composition. This was the first stop motion and live action collaboration making it very innovative.
Ray Harryhausen
Ray Harryhausen was inspired by the work of Willis O'Brien  both the lost world and King Kong ( of which he saw at the Chinese theater). Inspired by King Kong he began to make puppets of the monsters in the movie. He started taking anatomy classes at Los Angeles City College. In 1940 he joined George pal at puppet toons and was one of the first animators to work for him after working one 13 shorts he left for bigger and better things. His first feature film in 1952 was called "Beast from 20,000 fathoms" and is considered the physical inspiration for Godzilla. In this film he invented the dynamite technique which he is still famous for today.
Phil Tippet
Visual effects expert Phil Tippet was the pioneer of the "Go Motion" technique. Phil was hired by lucasfilm (George Lucus) for the miniature chess scene in "Star wars". For the next film he headed the animation department for the battle of Hoth. While he was there he developed a technique called go motion which involved electronically moving puppets which moved in time with the camera shots to provide a more precise smoother motion. The object is in the process of moving whilst the photo is being taken which removes what is called the staccato effect.
The Brothers Quay
The Brothers Quay are Identical twins who produced dream like surrealist stop motion films. They went to the Royal College of Art London where the love for surrealism was found. Their films are often seriously dark and moody using a mix of organic and inorganic parts to their puppets, The have also been know to use pixilation techniques on actors but I will get into that later. 

Stop Motion Animation (Part 1)

The Persistance of vision is the idea that an image can be retained in the retina for a 25th of a second, this is why we dont see black spaces between the frames in a movie. These devices below prove this theory as they take still images and turn them into moving.

Thaumatrope  - Johm Ayrton

A Thaumatrope is a device with an image on both sides ad when spun in quick succession the images merge to become one. The first image would be the one half of a full picture and the second half well.. the other half of the picture. The eye maintains the picture of view for a fraction of a second so when the device is spun it merges both pictures into one.

Phenakistoscope – Joseph Plateau

The Phenakistiscope is a disc shaped wheel with images running around the outside, these images are divided up by a series of slits. The disc is spun and if you look through the slits from the underneath of the disc into a mirror it reflects a moving image.

Zoetrope – William Horner

The Zoetrope is a wheel shaped like a pie dish with slits along the edge. Round the edge also is a string of images, usually a looped action and when spun, you look through the slits as again as the eye retains an image, it shows the looped photos like short video much similar to GIF files.

Praxinoscope -

The Praxinoscope is the IOS7 to the IOS6 of the Zoetrope, made in 1877, it replaced the slits of the Zoetrope with a circle of mirrors on the inside reflecting at a down angle towards the image on the disc below (like a Phenakistoscope). The image on the Praxinoscope made for a smoother and brighter picture. Progressive editions could allow for up to 15 minutes of film to be played consisting of 500 picture.

Kinetoscope - Tomas Edison

This is the most advanced device of all ive written about, its consists of a film which is run at 16 frames per second and view by only one person at a time through a peep style hole. The actual contraption is a box like object with a hole for viewing. As the pictures pass the whole it creates a moving picture.