Week 10: Introduction to TV Idents Assignment and Pre-production Started

I have been introduced to the new assignment, creating a Television Ident. This assignment requires me to use Adobe Flash to create a TV Ident. From the brief I have been given four different options to create an Ident based on, these include:

• ITV- Christmas
• E4 Music- An unsigned band
• CBBC- The Olympics
• Film 4- A British Film

From these I will choose an idea to create a final ident which appeals to the target audience of teenagers. I am required to carry out an investigation into the design and purpose of TV idents. I will research into the different elements which are considered in relation to these points. Some of the design elements include:

• Screen Tempo- The speed and rhythm of the ident, these are usually slow paced.
• Space and Time- The space used within the screen and the duration of ident which is 30 seconds.
• Information Led- Important information may be shown within the TV ident.
• Interaction with the viewers- Makes the audience think and react to the ident. The ident will catch the audience attention even if they are not watching the TV as they can hear the voice over for the ident.

Some purpose elements for TV idents include:

• Identity- For the channel, this becomes an identity and people can recognise their channels and programmes by this ident.
• Packaging and Re-Packaging- New techniques and formats are added to older TV idents.
• Scheduling- Idents can be seen as adverts and breaks within TV programmes, especially within channels such as BBC.
• Segmentation within scheduling- This allows the programmes to be ‘broken up’ and show that one programme has finished and they are now introducing another.

For the investigation I will be finding some existing TV idents and relating these to the design and purpose elements. This will show how they present the purpose and design elements within TV idents. Through this investigation it will present my knowledge in terms of TV idents and their purpose and design. Therefore I will be able to start brainstorming my own TV ident ideas as I have knowledge in how they are designed and their purpose.

I have created a production schedule for this assignment and this document shows the time frames which I have allowed myself to carry out the individual tasks. The image below shows my production schedule. The deadline for this assignment is 30^th January 2012 and from the production schedule it shows my deadlines clearly. My investigation document needs to be completed by 12^th December, my pre-production documents needs to be completed by 16^th January.

TV Ident Production Schedule

I will start to complete my developing ideas by creating 3 initial ideas for the TV ident, based on the different options to create an ident based on. I aim to carry out the investigation on TV idents and developing ideas from this week. As shown in my production schedule I will be completing 2 different documents at the same time. This allowed me to be able to complete the tasks required for this assignment. I will be continuing with the investigation and developing ideas, by creating mind maps and sketches to show my initial ideas for my TV ident.