My
task for Creative Futures Week – whilst most of the class are
visiting SMEs in London – is to design a 'sting' or ident for the
University Television channel.
Research
I began by looking at
Glyndwr TV's website to see how they present themselves to the world.
The website itself has
a slightly oppressive feel; the page is horizontally bordered with
black banners upon which white sans serif text is displayed. A set of
sharp-looking flat white horizontal tabs to the left provides the
navigation whilst a white tab slightly to the left of centre offers
a selection of content from behind the lower horizontal black bar.
The deep grey text on the white reading areas is in the same font as
that used for the white against the black: something similar to Segoe
UI Light but with slightly shorter upper stems and a crossed 'W'. I
am trying to research which font this is. The site made me feel I
was peering into a room from behind
barred prison windows.
Behind the white tabs
and black bars a blurred photographic image of the studio is visible,
featuring a man on a darkened stage beneath overhead studio lights,
surrounded by technical equipment. The surface of the image has been
overlain with some kind of dotted-grid filter, creating the
unfortunate sense of looking at a cheap newspaper photograph of the
studio, although perhaps this is meant to convey a 'frosted glass'
sense of exclusion to the viewer.
The predominating
colours of the image are sombre maroons, lilacs, greys, purples and
blues, - similar to the colour schemes used in such shows as ITV's
'The X Factor' and conveying an impression of professionalism.
Clicking the links briefly reveals the entire image – still behind
a filter however - before the bars close in again - to the same set
up - when the page loads.
When I tried to watch
some of their music videos - using Mozilla 10 - on the white content
bar (rather than on Vimeo where they are hosted) I encountered
problems such as the fact that the video screen was chopped off on
the right and the black bar along the top did not move out of the way
as one might expect – instead I had to run the white content tab up
and down in order to see at the video and peek at the information
that it otherwise obscured.
The videos I watched
all began with the familiar coloured strips and lower-case font
associated with Glyndwr University. I'm not sure why this
recognisable branding was not used on the Glyndwr TV website – this
is again something I will need to research, as I would prefer to use
this friendlier font in my sting.
Day
Two
My initial idea for the sting is to cut the letters 'GTV' out from a surface of some kind, probably card of stiff paper. Behind them an animated series of images relevant to the University and surrounding areas will move around, probably clockwise. This could be animated fairly easily using stop motion, by sandwiching the 'GTV' sheet between raised panes of glass beneath which a collage could be rotated by degrees. This does however raise the issue of what colours and images (if any) should be used on the sheet from which the letters have been cut. White or black would be ideal of course, but it might be better to keep the letters themselves still (in white or black) and instead create a smudge and click type animation beneath them. Another way of doing this might be to create the smudge and click collage separately overlay a still of the letters afterwards, using a green screen. I will work on some designs and see what happens.
My initial idea for the sting is to cut the letters 'GTV' out from a surface of some kind, probably card of stiff paper. Behind them an animated series of images relevant to the University and surrounding areas will move around, probably clockwise. This could be animated fairly easily using stop motion, by sandwiching the 'GTV' sheet between raised panes of glass beneath which a collage could be rotated by degrees. This does however raise the issue of what colours and images (if any) should be used on the sheet from which the letters have been cut. White or black would be ideal of course, but it might be better to keep the letters themselves still (in white or black) and instead create a smudge and click type animation beneath them. Another way of doing this might be to create the smudge and click collage separately overlay a still of the letters afterwards, using a green screen. I will work on some designs and see what happens.
Areas
for further research:
Idents
and Stings – background and history.
Research
what Glyndwr TV themselves would like: find out who to contact and
take sketchbook and preliminary designs along for a brief
consultation.
I
will also need to source images pertinent to Glyndwr University,
Glyndwr TV, Television students, Glyndwr students, Wrexham – the
local area, Owain Glyndwr, North East Wales and Wales in general and
fonts used for Glyndwr University and Glyndwr TV.
Days
Four to Seven
After chatting with
Ayse – who is also following this brief - we agreed to work
together. Unfortunately however she became too unwell to attend
university this week so together we have decided that she will work
on the research aspect at home and email me her results whilst I
continue to develop the artwork. I found a lovely site hosting
videos of BBC stings to get us started:
http://www2.tv-ark.org.uk/bbctwo/1997_continuity.html
Day
Eight
I began sketching out
my ideas for the storyboard this evening as I can already see the
sequence clearly in my mind's eye, but realised that it would be more
practical to create the individual frames for the storyboard on
Photoshop and either present them electronically or print them out to
glue onto an A3 storyboard sheet on Monday.
Days
Nine to Twelve
Ayse
emailed me her research and I spent the weekend putting together the
images I had downloaded and trying out different combinations. The
research clearly shows that professional idents fall into one of two
main categories. In the first, an image identifying the channel
itself is shown, either the channel number or the channel's acronym.
Constantly moving elements within this image retains the interest of
the viewer whilst an announcer speaks to introduce the next
programme. In
the second, longer kind, the audience is presented with a series of
images and has to guess their what they allude to. It is only in the
final few seconds that the entire meaning – the channel's identity
– becomes apparent. Examples of this can be seen in Channel 4's
'4s', where the audience is taken on a journey in which cleverly
edited scenery combines to 'create' a number '4' in the landscape.
Having
looked at both of these solutions I have decided to go for the
simpler approach which will emphasise the fact that GTV is to a large
extent part of the wider community of Wrexham and surrounding area,
in terms not only of its output but also its input. I therefore
believe it will best be represented in the manner of a topical,
'no-frills' channel providing locally-based information and
entertainment. The ident I am going to design will be simple and to
the point with an early resolution.
Days
Thirteen to Sixteen
I began by laying the pictures of the local area on top of the 'Glyndwr Colours' as planned, but the image of the coloured strips turned out to be very difficult of to work with since I needed to eradicate the word 'glyndwr' in white, but because of the angle of the strips and the poor quality of the jpeg (the best I could get) it was not possible to cut and paste without it looking terrible. It took most of Saturday evening to arrive at something I could work with.
I began by laying the pictures of the local area on top of the 'Glyndwr Colours' as planned, but the image of the coloured strips turned out to be very difficult of to work with since I needed to eradicate the word 'glyndwr' in white, but because of the angle of the strips and the poor quality of the jpeg (the best I could get) it was not possible to cut and paste without it looking terrible. It took most of Saturday evening to arrive at something I could work with.
Developing
the ideas on my original sketched storyboard, I was able to place the
images, transform them into a sphere (shaped like a rugby ball to
start with – for Wales – and a football afterwards for the
Wrexham racecourse-football ground now owned by the University)
around which the lower-case 'g' formed. The text took a lot of
tweaking because I couldn't identify the font beyond the fact that it
was from the serif family. I eventually used a 'g' from Photoshop's
Caslon and the 't' and 'v' from their Baskerville (because they were
proportionally correct at least), flattening out the slanted serifs
on the latter. Again, I didn't have originals of these letters to
guide me, so it was a case of guesswork based on what I could see in
the standard white 'glyndwr' logo. I finished the second draft of the
storyboard frames on Sunday night, ready to bring in on Monday.
On
Monday morning, Marisse took a look at the work so far and advised me
that the colours of the letters didn't stand out sufficiently from
the background. I had made them black – like the colours of the
studio website - whereas Marisse suggested white and as soon as I
tried this out the whole thing looked far better. I then added a
touch of drop shadow and soft chisel embossing to give the letters a
slightly more raised appearance..although not generally a fan of drop
shadows I think it has worked in this instance.
Marisse
had also pointed out that my version of the 'Glyndwr Colours' was
inaccurate, containing both white, a brown and a vivid blue! I spent
the rest of the day correcting this as best I could although I can
still see faults in it here and there. For some reason I don't
understand, the 'brush tool' burns the colour in and I therefore had
to use lassos and a 'paint bucket tool' which can be very patchy. It
took several more sessions of tweaking to get it to a point that I
hope will be presentable.
Finally
I put the nine individual frames on a Photoshop A3 sized canvas and
wrote the text beneath each one to show what it was indicating. I
then emailed this to Ayse – who said she is pleased with it and
happy for it to be submitted.
Evaluation
I have enjoyed working
on this project, although it has taken far longer to put together
than I ever expected. The main difficulties I encountered have been
due to lack of information and resources. This meant I have had to
work in the dark a lot of the time as I could not get access to to
the studio on the campus and did not receive a reply to my email
enquiry and therefore had to make educated guesses as to what might
be appropriate. I also made the error of choosing a background and
font – the 'Glyndwr Colours' and logo – that I thought would be
ideal in terms of recognisable identity but which in reality proved
problematic since I had no high quality originals of either from
which to work and I don't think I have really done either of these
lovely designs justice.
I feel that the
completed storyboard could actually work as an animation although
ideally of course the images that eventually form into a sphere would
actually be moving footage – the team chasing a football, wind in
the trees, shoppers thronging the streets and Glyndwr's flag
fluttering atop Plas Coch – but stills will have to suffice for the
time being!
___________________________________________________________________________
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