Ident Character

I had a look for some inspiration for what my character is going to look like. While i was thinking about the idea for my ident and the character the first thing i thought was charlie chaplin so he is my main inspiration.



I had a look at some films produced by him and found that he has very exagerated jerky movements, which is how i want my animation to look.

I took a load of images from the internet as inspiration and then started to draw ideas for my character.


























After drawing some ideas for my character i ended up with this.



I decided to keep my character simple and tried to make him look a little modern as well being old fashioned. I wanted to keep him simple so that i would be able to model him in 3D.









This is the model of my character that i made in maya. I would make a rendered version of the turnaround but not sure how i do that yet which gives me something else i need to learn. I like how my model has turned out and i think it is similar to my character design. I am glad that i chose to use maya to make my ident as i learned a lot from making this, and also making this helped me remember and improve the skills that i learned in class.

I then went on to make a skeleton for my character and i made a test of how i want the character to walk.


I like how my character is moving and think it is ready to animate with.

ChewTv

This is the storyboard and set up that i produced to pitch my idea. The pitch i think went ok but because i knew we only had a short amount of time i think it was rushed and i was also nervous so don't think that helped either =S.














I want my Ident to look like an old black and white film so i will only use black and white and the Chewtv logo colour.

I have an idea of what sound i want as well, i want an old upbeat piano tune in the style of what filmakers used when black and white films were around. I only want the music to be playing while the character is walking along the street but when he hits hits the logo it will stop and there will be a bang. Then the logo will make a swishy or space ship hover kind of sound as it rises and spins, possibly some modern music in the background but think that might make it too much. Will have to experiment when i get around to the sound.

I want the film to have a grainy look to it aswell so it looks like an old film and the grainy effect could disappear the same time the music stops.

ChewTv Brainstorm

To start off the chewtv project I looked at the brief and the requirements needed for the Ident.





















I then looked at other idents produced by BBC 2 and E4.











Then i went on to brainstorm some ideas for my ident and drew some rough storyboards


















































I found that most of these ideas would last longer than 5 seconds, they wouldn't work for my ident so I tried to think of other ideas.











I have chosen to use this idea for my tv ident as i think it will fit into the time limit and it is funny and will catch the audiences attention.

Storyboard Artist

A storyboard artist's job is to draw how the scenes in an animation film are going to work. They have to show what camera angles and shots they are going to use. This gives everyone a visual idea of how the film is going to look and allows them to get an idea of what the director wants before they start getting to work on the actual thing. Storyboard artists prevent wasted time on filming parts of a scene that the director does not wish to use. It also allows them to easily cut down on what they need and don't need beofre they start filming. Storyboard artists have to be able to show their ideas through drawings instead of verbal communication. Usually they are produced using pencil or ink but can sometimes be made as full colour drawings to show the director how it would look in the colours, backgrounds he has chosen. Storyboard artists need a good understanding of the terminology used in creating films as well as artistic talents.

I had a search on the internet for an example of a storyboard artist and found a storyboard for lilo and stitch produced by Armand Serrano.

This is the one of the scenes that he storyboarded for Lilo and Stitch which i really love as i love the film and find this really interesting. After looking at Armand Serrano's blog and website i found that he hasn't just done storyboards but has focused on alot of aspects of the layout and look of the film his job title is now Feature film animation environmental designer, visual development and layout journeyman. And looking through his work really fascinated me. His storyboards are probrably my favorite though.

Armand Serrano is currently an art director at sony pictures animation in california. He started off by studying engineering at the university of Santo Tomas in Manila. He then worked as an engineer but then gave up for drawing. He started in animation on May 1990 as in inbetweener for Filcartoons Inc. After 10 months he then moved on to the layout department and started his career as a layout artist. In 1994 he joined Phillippine animation studio where he worked on the marvel cartoons and supervised the layout for X-men, fantasic 4, Biker Mice from Mars and an animated music video for prince. In 1996 he moved to the U.S and started to work for 7th level, Inc. a multimedia company developing games in California and he finished Layout Visualisation and Background design course at Associates in Art in Sherman Oaks, California. He then joined Walt Disney feature animation studio in febuary 1997 and relocated to Orlando, Florida to work on Mulan, Tarzan, Lilo and Stitch and Brother Bear. He then joined Sony Pictures Animation and his work includes Visual Development/ Environmental Designer for Surf's up and Open Season 2.