Unit 32 Assignment 3

BBC 3 | Current Ident | Outro Ident

The above ident is for BBC Three, a channel aimed at a younger audience, far less formal than its other counterpart channels, such as BBC 1, 2 and 4, whilst not being immature enough for CBBC. The advert is hard to describe as a whole as there is so much going on in the advert, however, I feel that the abundance of activity in the ident is used for a purpose and creates a unique style for the ident. It gives the impression the channel shows a very wide variety of different programmes that will appeal to both genders and lots of ages, I get this impression as when the camera pans around the globe it goes past several things, such as a pair of high heels, cars, swimmers, climbers, a town and a field of flowers. This ident again gives us a quirky and fun presentation as opposed to the more formal and perhaps boring idents shown on different channels, as the ident will match the target audience of the channel.

The ident is very fun, and the soundtrack matches this – it is very up-beat and happy, and gives us a sense that the programs on the channel will follow suit. Tied in with the fun artistic style and the animation, the whole package delivers something that is very different from the networks other channels, making us believe the programs will be a similar ordeal; this goes with the voice over used for the ident. It is a woman with a voice that isn’t serious or formal at all, instead she seems to be jesting about the program and creating jokes, she also uses the word “stonking” which is a word that is typically used to joke around with something, and isn’t used seriously.

You also get the impression that this advert is shown at a later slot at the night, this is because of the giant plug being placed into the socket at the start, then illuminating the city, and intern starting a chain reaction that starts the advert off. I also think this because the other BBC Three indents are a much brighter – and this

one is used to start off the more adult oriented programs or perhaps the night programs on BBC Three.

Technically I think this ident requires a good knowledge of animation software as the animations appear to be very complex and difficult to achieve compared to work we have previously done in Flash. I do not think I would be following this style for my “The Grid” ident as I am not competent enough to replicate it. I do however feel the style of the ident would match that of what The Grid would be looking for as it is unique and aimed at the target audience. One criticism I have of this ident is the fact it is very busy with lots going on at the same time, this is just personal preference though.

Comedy Central | Current Ident | Chomp ident

The ident shown above is for the comedy channel: Comedy Central. The channel features all kinds of different comedic programs, from stand-up to sitcoms. It has an extremely broad target audience thus making the idents broad and easily accessible – this one is no exception. The ident could be perceived in many ways as it is clearly taking inspiration from Pacman, which could mean many things. The first and perhaps most obvious connotation would be the fact this is appealing to an audience who plays video games, which I also feel is correct as I think the large majority of Comedy Central’s audience will be males who play video games. I can tell this is harping back to Pacman, as it has a diegetic soundtrack that has the “pinging” noise you expect from a video game, despite the fact it was never present on Pacman. It is diegetic as you can physically see the object making the sound. The animation used when the C for Comedy Central flies on is reminiscent of Pacman also, as it chomps up the smaller C like in the video game.

The voice-over in the ident is what you would expect of a channel that shows comedy programs – up-beat and fun. This non-diegetic sound gets the viewer in the correct frame of mind for the upcoming program and sets a tone for the whole channel. The narrator also makes a joke whilst introducing the program, again this matches the channel. The ident is very effective as just by watching it you know what the channel will be like and how it will be presented. This shows a sign of good ident design because it instantly sets a tone for the channel.

In conclusion the ident suits the whole scheme of the channel, the ident suits the channel and it suits the audience that would be associated with the channel, in every way. I feel the joke in the introduction of the channel was a clever aspect too which gave it another edge.

This ident is a lot simpler technically than the BBC Three one, which gives me the impression I could create something similar in Flash. I really like the style and the retro feel to it, and I know it would be something that would suit The Grid, so whilst I’m creating my ident I will definitely take inspiration from this one. I also like how clean and simple the ident is, this is something I really want to try and emulate because I do not like idents which are busy with all kinds of various animations which distract you from what the ident is setting out to do.

CBS Reality | Current Ident | Chase ident

The above ident is for CBS’ reality channel, ‘CBS Reality’. The introduction is very artistic and clever by creating a dynamic scene which shows a bank robbery in progress. It has very bold colours with hints of white to add more detail into the scene. This instantly sets a tone for the whole channel by letting the audience know what the type of programs on the channel will be and that they will have something to do with crime and action. You also get the feeling the channel will show modern crime as opposed to older programmes, due to the fact that the intro is very modern and aimed to target a younger audience and the fact there is an outline of a Lamborghini – A modern car. The ident has lots of

clever animation, an example of this would be the train that transforms into a bullet and bursts into showing the CBS logo at the end.

The Mise-en-scene of the ident leads us to believe that it is a snapshot of the programs being shown, it has a fast pace with the screen panning from one side to the other very fast, along with the speeding car and fast moving objects in the scene, it has no voice over and has only diegetic sound with absolutely no music being played in the background, because of this it makes the viewer believe that we are supposed to be focusing on the action and the drama instead of being distracted by other things, and this means that the programmes on the channel will share the same values.

At the very end of the ident the broadcaster’s logo appears, this is a good indication as to how the company operates, and what its foundations are. In this case the logo has both a modern sans-serif font, and

a more formal serif font which again gives us the impression this channel plays modern classic shows, which would appeal to a more modern audience. The logo also matches the theme to give it a more integrated feel, and makes us feel they have paid more attention to the colour scheme of the ident.

Although I think this advert is very good, and fits the channel perfectly I also believe that it would be far too difficult for me to recreate it as it is just too hard. The number of different things that happen throughout the whole ident come together to make it seem very complex, and not something I would like to recreate.