As a class, we have required and asked by our teacher to part take in a series of research surrounding the category in media called Idents. Idents are used worldwide to identify a company in a matter of seconds and is usually used to catch its audience’s attention. To use an Ident is allowing the world to view your brand, creating an Ident is creating your brand.
In this task of creating an Ident I felt as though it would have been a big challenge to take on but also exited to take part in creating something as vast as an Ident I can proudly name as my own brand. In class we discussed the purpose of Idents including, how they are used and the wide majority of places you may view or hear them. In class we have come to our own conclusions on how Idents can be used to represent you by looking at a range of examples seen on www.theidentgallery.com. Viewing this website, I felt as though I had gained some perspective on how I would like to be represented via use of Ident.
One way how I would like to be represented is by a vibrant; think outside the box, creative individual who has a passion for media. By looking at the examples I had distaste for the wide majority of Idents that were online. Some of the Idents viewed were from television networks such as the BBC, ITV 2 as well as channel 5. As these were more commercial Idents I felt as though these were good but I felt that it lacked a level of individuality and got the feel of company representations more than anything. Taking this with me, I had a brief look at other Idents that were mainly from independent filmmakers as well as Idents from channel 4, film four and E4. I got a more comforting vibe and felt that some of the Idents I have seen mentioned above had more of an influence on what I found as inspiration.
Looking online here is an iota of examples that I found as inspiration:
Using www.youtube.com and www.shortoftheweek.com as a reference point for inspiration. By then having these websites that hold a range of films/Idents I have access to a selection of resources. I took a vast amount of screen shots also as well as added them to my saved list on my laptop. By having access to resources I felt I was ready to start searching for online tutorials that may help me create my Ident, looking for software such as; Maya, After Effects and 4D Cinema, there is a range of software I can create a motion graphics sequence on.
Looking at professional as well as independent Idents as a reference point for examples has helped me focus my ideas on the angle I would like my Ident to appear to my audience and the impression it would also have on them. Also, planning my Idents I have considered my longer-term goals and how my long my Ident would last. Lasting approximately 6-10 seconds would be the most ideal, as I would have my audience’s attention engaging them for a short period of time before my sequence begins.
I then finalized my ideas of what I would like to emulate and if possible add my own style to the sequence such as colour and text. With the YouTube tutorial for the glitch effect I realized rather than adding text, I would lie to add a logo that in time will be identifiable by my audience.
After creating my logo and themed Ident the next steps were to create music that would play with my sequence that looks as though it works. Choosing the music theme was the tricky part because I had to consider the technical aspects such as; how would this type of music make my audience feel?
The genre of music I considered was;
- Ambient
- Rock
- Angelic
- Instruments (harp, violin)
- Heavy metal
- Glitching/distortion
I then researched YouTube for sounds that I felt as though would have been compatible to my Idents. As I have created one already with the title An Ondre Roach Film, I believed that silent would have been better. As the Ident is typography and simple, I would have believed sound would have distorted the authenticity of my Ident.
The second logo being the glitch effect was a challenging process to consider which sound would best suit it. Doing extensive research online as well as listening to audio files on the college server, I was able to identify the level of distortion and sound I would like to use for my Ident.
The third logo being the particle effect was the most challenging and exiting to find sound for a variety of reasons, as the other logos had specific themes the particle effect logo had a variety. The music that I found most compatible was the angelic singing.
Researching this brief has helped my own experiences because the project has helped me establish my own brand as a creative as well as create Idents that will be of use to me in years to come. This has also enabled me to consider emulating other artist’s work and adding my own specific style to it. In the production I had considered my strengths and how I wanted to portray my brand to my audience. Two ideas that I had brainstormed were actually to appear confident and also professional. By putting my time and effort into creating something that represents me, creating an Ident to the upmost best of my ability will demonstrate to my audience what I am capable of. After that short demonstration my show reel would follow.
Considering the technical aspects for my longer-term goals was one of the aspects in this whole task that I have put an extensive amount of thought and planning into. By knowing that pulling off an Ident that as a whole I would be happy with, I would aim to use this for an extensive amount of time and use either Ident to represent my professionalism, just like Universal Studios, Just like Pixar and also Disney.
Working on a task such as this one has helped and aided me in discovering a few of the things that I am capable of. Using after effects has helped my hone some of my skills and abilities that may have not necessarily been the strongest in and developed the skills to work more individually and perfect the imperfections that were visible in the pieces of work I had created.
By getting feedback from various classmates during the creation and final piece of my work I was able to gain consumer knowledge and consider any aspect that I may have missed out or not considered. Some of the feedback I had got were; “on the roach Ident you should have some writing or letters so people know who you are” I felt as though this was understandable, of course I would like to be identified for the pieces of work that I create but on the other hand I felt as though not having writing at that current moment in time in any of my sequences it would appear more authentic. As a safety measure at the end of my sequences as a rolling title I have the “an Ondre Roach Film” Ident so my audience know who I am. In response to my Particle effect Ident A few of the comments that I got were that “the writing and lettering looked out of place” again this was something that I could relate to, and actually changed the font of the writing because I felt a level of mutual understanding and finally with the “an Ondre Roach film” Ident. The only comments that were made is that the writing doesn’t look like it’s perfectly in the middle. I decided not to do anything about the third Ident because I felt that this was a miniscule problem.
Overall, I liked this task because I felt as though it allowed all of us to express our creativity as a class and come to our own conclusions as to what we thought would best represent us. We took on a series of research and thought about the technical consideration behind how we are represented and can be represented by the use of Idents. I am happy with the task given and would be looking forward to creating more projects on after effects.
ondreroach 