Assignment - Initial Ideas and Mood Board

So where is all this animaiton lark heading towards? Well, my little darlings, the task has been set! (Well; it has already been set for quite some time now... but my blogger-ness has had to plat catch-up. But nonetheless; here it is...

We have to create 3 idents (The mini-adverts for channels which they often plug inbetween their programmes; just incase you had no idea what channel you had changed your TV to (Channel roulette is indeed good fun if you're detrimentally bored and with a group of mates. Even more fun is muting said programme and adding your own dialogue... but I digress...))

So how to go about creating an ident? What sort of stuff would be nice to do? Well... I think the more important quesiton here is what would be more fun to do. We pretty much have a choice of anything; so at least pick a fun one to do! The idea of a robot instantly intruiged me. A cute little thing to animate. But doing what? What channel would it work well with?

I sat down and poured out a couple of sketches of robots and ideas; and this one in particular caught my eye...

A few more thoughts later and I had an idea... have a peek at the over-complicated mood-board first and I'll explain...

"A robot... and a lever?" you dryly proclaim; staring at your monitor wondering what elaborate joke this is. Is that it?

Indeedy! That's it. The immediate thing about this is that it's easy on the eyes. It's not overcomplicated and almost 'cute' for want of a better word. The plain background pushes the entire attention upon the robot itself (Now un-originally named 'Discover-Bot'). So why did I settle on this?

After seeing the robot just on a plain background... no gadgets, no fireworks, no over-sized pumpkins breakdancing to Hammertime... it reminded me of several in-game videos for a wonderful little gem on the PC called 'Worms 3D'. Have a quick peek at them. Notice a running style through most of them?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IFQMr6u9no

As you can see; most of the videos have a worm, with a little patch of ground beneath them (Sometimes not at all)... and that's it. No complicated scenery and backgrounds... just them. And the amazing there is that it works. Your attention is completely focussed on the action; and it looks so pleasant and cartoony. It's perfect and entertaining to watch. As odd as it sounds... it's 'pleasing to the eye'. It's like eye candy that isn't packed with sugar; if that makes sense. The style of the videos were just the sort of thing that I thought would be fun to do.

From here; this also reminded me of one of my favourite adverts... 'The Famous Grouse'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAJ__XOmsLI&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jF-x0Jn8hY&feature=related

Again; it's simple... it's just the grouse and the plain background... but it works! It's the simplicity of it which makes it work so well. Had the Famous Grouse been on a background of, say, a forest... it wouldn't have had the same impact. And that's the look I wanted to achieve with mine.

As for Discovery Channel? Well; that idea came about from what the robot would be doing. I had the style but not what he'd do or who for... Discovery Channel is well known so it was one of the first channels to spring to mind; and the name suddenly gave itself the theme... discovery! Thus, the idea was hatched... a robot on the simple background discovering things with each ident. One ident he finds a lever, tries to pull it... etc etc... and you just see him discovering different things with each one. And so, the plan had been decided!

So now; go back and look at the Mood Board. Though it might just look like a sketch... it conveys the exact mood I want from this... simplicity. Something easy on the eye... nothing overcomplicated with too many colours or things going on. That's not to say this is going to be easy. The increased focus on the robot means that he basically carries the entire ident. The animation has to be spot on for this to be enjoyable. If the robot's movements are weak and unrealistic; the entire ident will fall flat on its face. And that's where my focus will have to go... making the robot near perfect