How lovable is this video? A simple and effective design treatment to a song directed by Perish Factory, and below by Rex The Dog 'Bubbilicious' found via Tim Wan's Blog.

After our critical studies session with Richard, I had a chat to Tim Wan about how he was getting on. He told me about this video following the cycle of a seed as it passed through the body right from the ground, and I found it. A beautifully crafted animation by Johnny Kelly, using lots of paper-craft and simple illustrations using line, it completely perpetuates the complete idea I have been looking for in my animations.

After reviewing other peoples work in the crits this afternoon, Lauren Forrester pointed out this gorgeous ident for the BBC using a hand-crafted apprearance. Unlike the storyboards that I created I have not considered yet the use of 3D camera movements. This may be something to consider later on. This ident also reminds me of the Su Blackwell video [below] which I looked at in earlier posts.

In inspiring content that has influenced the design direction I have taken I stumbled upon these creations for Topshop/Topman. In fact they are but not idents but conference introduction animations. This is the feel that has inspired my to work in such a way, vintage silhouettes upon a dreamy background that gives a real sense of character and feels romanticised. The application of colour here is also very appropriate to what I am trying to communicate, its eery and I think by using this with the twist of being horror will combine the two effectively.

From the Crit feedback I recieved today some people were unsure as to where I had gotten the inspiration from to produce a hand-made animation. These pictures I took earlier this month were from the Rob Ryan exhibit currently being displayed at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, among other strange creations such as boulders. These pictures are available on my Homepage aswell as my personal design undertakings.

From my delelopmental work I got several comments that people had seen the heartform that Ihad been depicting before. So I found out what it was, apparently the Used used a heartform very similarly to what I was doing but I was far more illustrative [below] on one of their album covers. I actually quite like it. One of the comments I recieved was to look at types of media I could use to craft the animation, the use of texture couls help make my animation look much more crafted and in so doing boost that idea of 'romanticised' imagery BUT still retain that twist of horror, suggestings of not altering the use of colour too much would seem to take away what the idents are communicating.

From my usual blog surfing i cam across these interesting videos via Ink On My Fingers by Flora Mcdonald. [Above] The eight irresistible principles of fun is incredibly fascinating and by far the best but also so simple to achieve at the same time. Lovely.

One of my favorite Disney films of all time is "Monsters Inc.", following the story in a world of monsters where screams of children are obtained by crossing through doors into the human world, and used as a power source. The introduction to the film is a sequence of vector graphics of doors and monsters which seemingly pass from door to door scaring as they go. Like the idents I want to produce it captures pace and movement really well. It may seem strange to associate this with my idents which depict blood and gore, but this is what the twist is about. An unconventional use of romanticised hand-cut shapes in an animation which depicts a scene of bloody terror, twisted? I think so.

Apologies for putting this in but it is one of the few american series' I do watch, from JJ.Abrams whom brought the Lost Series to our screens. I just love the pace of the introduction and for myself it always engages me and to this day I still get excited as it just gets me intrigued straight away.

After delivering my very successful presentation yesterday one of the main contextual graphic designers to look at was the work of saul bass. Because I am wanting to given a hand-crafted feel to my animation I intend on working with shapes and vectors in my videos, saul bass produced animation sequences for film introductions, the one above "Anatomy of a Murderer" & below "The Man with the Golden Arm". Both are vector based using a limited colour pallet using various but primarily front-on angles. Working in a handcrafted way I am very interested in creating work with lots of detail, something that shows a certain degree of work and real attention to the small areas. The video at the bottom I believe is another one of Saul Bass' works for the film "Catch Me if you Can", much more along the lines of what I want to create in my idents, the idea of having a a scene with something going on giving a real sense of pace and character to the animation.

After having a gander into college yesterday to produce some work and kind of get back into the routine of things I popped by Becca's house for a good old gossip. Becca Liggins like myself is looking at doing the film season brief and in particular looking at producing idents for a series of films based around vampires/horror, mine being Gore/Valentines our ideas are somewhat similar. I couldn't help then looking at her blog today and she has posted up this video of a TV ident for a season of horror films, perfect for each of our subject matters. the video below is a film introduction again I thought this was interesting and I haven't yet considered how type would play a part in my idents.

A night of love on the BBC. A television ident for a season of films for Valentines, produced for BBC 2 and posted by TVARK. Perfect for the kind of idea I would like to achieve, not necessarily the appearance or looks at the twist of horror which I would like to involve. TVARK also posts up some fantastic vintage idents from most other channels as well. The other ident is for Film4 whom I have never thought about as a client before, their target audience would most probably be wider than that of FIVE. I selected this ident because of what was going on, the shattering glass could be something to consider among my idents for a season of gore among Valentines.

"...till death us do part."

or

"heart-breakers"

A series bloody films for Valentines weekend. For the next brief I have chosen to produce a series of five TV idents for a season of films on a specific channel (not yet specified) over the weekend 13/02. These films will be horror/gore based to target a predominantly male audience produced for channels either FIVE, SciFI or Channel 4 whoms audience would appeal more than family programming from the BBC or ITV.

Subject - Horror/gore films of mainstream cinema from the past decade selected for a cosy night of fright.

Concept - Classic horror/gore film from the 21st century are popular today by various mature audiences. Although perhaps unconventional for a period of time that would be seen as a time of love, horror films provide an alternative to those audiences whom may not seek to view fantasiful love films.

Audience - This is largely male dominated but the horror genre is most popular with youth both male and female and those aged less than 30.

Content - Blood, knives and love. The content is based around the idea that valentines is time of love but with a horror twist. Selected horror films from the past decade are most likely to appeal to a younger audience, these will be researched more in-depth which may help provide content later such as film quotations and imagery.

Mood - Dark, reddened colours, hand-cut, romanticised, twisted, fearful.

[Below] Samples of Fiver Idents from 2008, fantastic use of playful colour, and could be produced in After Effects.

Having completed the Silent Movie brief, the next brief is looking at creating a piece of video. Either a title sequence for a proposed television programme or a series of 5 television idents for a promotion of a season of films. Having watched these many a times by being a TV person and a lover of idents, I have just been watching "AD of the Decade" on ITV, this to be honest is quite a useful programme although we are not using moving image its none the less inspiring and illustrates creative thinking at its best. I love the Guiness Advertisement with the dominoes, Cadbury's "A Glass and Half Full" productions, Sony's Bravia Adverts and Honda Domino effect advertisement. From dancing eyebrows and talking meerkats, to a car made of cake and the world’s longest waterslide, Ben Shephard narrates a celebratory countdown of the 20 greatest commercials to grace our TV screens over the past decade. Finding out how technology lent a hand in bringing Gene Kelly back to our screens, how a Sunday league football ref came to book Jackie Charlton and who was actually in the monkey suit, in the now infamous drumming gorilla advert.

Having gone to the Brudenell Christmas fair earlier today I had a look at some of the blogs of the business card I collected. Here I found some lovely illustration by Katie Rose Gill and this lovely stopframe animation she had found which is perfect for the module I am currently working on. By Bang-yao Liu, a project at Savannah College of Art and Design, the idea being about how that every time when I am busy, I feel that I am not fighting with my works, I am fighting with those post-it notes and deadlines. By manipulating the post-it notes to do pixel-like stop motion, interactions can be made between real actor and post-its, I thought it was really nice and simple idea.

Yes, i just had to put this on.

On looking again at something more crafted and illustrated I remembered audi produced an advertisement for their new Q5 not so long ago. The character must have been superimposed onto the box other wise they would have gone through loads, this could I think therefore be produced using After Effects. I like the interacticvity and of course the character, it makes it more personal and hand crafted, bringing in i suppose that idea of the car being crafted to perfection.

I love craft and tactile graphics, this video I found whilst Youtube surfing as it were by Su Blackwell a renowned crafter in design whom often uses paper. I really like this stop-frame animation, you have no idea it is an advertisement for a product until right at the end. Beautiful. This type of motion graphics may come in use later in on in the design for digital media module as I would definitely like to experiment again with this form of video.

Its hard not to laugh really. Some lovely stop frame animation by the PEZ design group, myself and Hannah Jackson can across these last year, the one just below gave a little bit of an awkward moment and is very twisted but it was none the less fantastically animated. View their site for full information on their practice and other quirky videos.