Summative Evaluation

This module introduced me to some very interesting ideas regarding key aspects of animation, such as collaboration and pitching, and these are aspects I had never even considered before. There is also the value of gaining exposure by doing outside briefs in my own time that I learned about through the work I’ve done here.

The work I managed to do for my individual practice was great for self-improvement, exposure, and other valuable aspects that could benefit me as an animator.  My Syfy brief, while I did decide not to submit it, I learned how to plan and create pitch boards, something I initially had a tough time understanding the importance of, and is one of the most useful skills to know in the long run. Upon being introduced to YCN briefs, like the Syfy one, I learned more about why those competition briefs are on YCN, since they are failing and need something creative and eye-catching to support themselves. This is a good method of gaining exposure, and adding to my portfolio, by following these types of briefs. This study task also made me consider how to respond to a target audience, as well as how to recognise genre signifiers through mise-en-scene and colour, and both of these are important elements to master, since I’m an aspiring storyteller as well as an animator.

I also managed to develop my skills at posing, character design, and illustration by doing a bunch of t-shirt designs for the website, Qwertee. I mainly made designs based on popular video games and cartoons, since fan-shirts are the most famous ones of all on that site and therefore more likely to win. I was able to experiment by using other people’s art styles and seeing how my style and method of drawing translates with professionally designed characters. I feel like my skills at drawing have increased because of that. The poses, specifically for the “Gravity Souls” Qwertee design, came out looking great. The character design skills developed even more, after drawing professionally designed cartoon characters, because I picked up how and why those designs worked in the first place.

I also looked at a website called Loop de Loop, which posts briefs in which I have to make animations that loop and relate to a given theme, in my case the theme was ‘Gravity’, for example, and they let people be as creative as possible with their themes. The theme of gravity was a rather tough one to look at, so I figured rather than plan ahead for it, I could just keep on animating and see what I come up with as I go, which did actually lead to a bunch of surprises. I made some very nice looking expressions that transitioned very fast yet smoothly between each other. If I had refined it a little more then it could have actually managed to be accepted for submission. I had to make something for 11-second club as well, though. I actually used some of the skills I learned from the Qwertee designs and a little bit from Loop de Loop as well, to make a little something just to get my mind back to animation for a bit. I actually think if I did any more animations for this website, then I could actually build up my portfolio a lot, as well promote myself.

As well as my individual practice, I was given the task of collaborating with someone. As an animator, teamwork and leadership is an important trait to have, and I believe my partner, and I, both worked well enough together to create some very decent work. We were both loyal and understanding enough towards each other to know each of our roles and responsibilities. I genuinely enjoyed working with her as well. We were both had the same thoughts and opinions on our work, and what we could gain out of it. I learned more about creating pitch boards and presentation, and we both managed to work like professionals with our work when we were presenting it. We also both tried a more darker and bleak approach to animation, something we both have not done before, that is to say, and I personally have not done something like that in a serious manner before. I actually did this because my partner recognised my rather dark imagination and wanted to work around that, so I’m glad I was able to respond to that.

Overall, while this module did give me a lot of opportunities to learn new things that could be applied to animation, I just wish I wasn’t forced to lessen my time spent on other modules in order to work on this, as the workload was crazy. It certainly wasn’t as engaging as the main subjects, and while I did make my work relate to animation, it was still more geared towards stepping away from that, since animation is such a long process it was often recommended against that. All that is especially considering all of these skills were much better handled in PPP and Applied Animation.

Project Report

Syfy Brief - The Final Pitch Boards

I took a lot of feedback to heart and made some necessary changes to these pitch boards. There were complaints that they weren't clear enough and that there were no mock-ups. Overall, people were generally quite positive towards this but felt they needed improving. So these are my final pitch boards, and I think they work great. I didn't submit them, however, because I was so focused on other things that these were kind of neglected. I also didn't have the money to submit them either. It was just one stressful thing after another. On the bright side, though, I am quite proud of how they turned out in the end. Plus I did learn a lot from this experience. I'm just glad it's over though.

Loop de Loop: 'Gravity'

The theme for Loop de Loop at February and March was 'Gravity', which I wasn't really all that sure about. Seemed like a rather vague theme for animation, honestly. But for the sake of the my little animator bug that's been slowly dying in my mind for the past few months, I had to at least go for it. I admit, I was kind of lacking in ideas for this. After a while, I decided to experiment, by opening Flash and just keep going as I went along, then see where it takes me. So I just drew a generic stick-figure and started animating. Pretty straight-forward. I was kind of surprised with the results actually. It ran quite smoothly, though that's not to say it wasn't difficult and time-consuming like animation usually is, and I had fun with the expressions of the character. It fit the theme and looped quite well too. It's not perfect though, and I guess that's why it wasn't accepted for submission.

So this was decent practice for character animation, and straight ahead animation, something I've never tried before. Maybe in the future I can try it and it'll make it in.

11 Second Club: March

So *sigh* this friggin' website sure led to a series of blunders for me. I was going to do November's but I started way into the month and couldn't finish it in time, then I tried again on January, but then I lost all my save data (and again, this was way into the month so I couldn't start again), then finally I got to do the one for March! This time I completed it though, and boy am I happy!

As I am highly interested in character animation, and wish to practice that (and not to mention we haven't actually animated in a while) this was a great opportunity to really develop my skills in that field a lot more. I didn't actually target an audience for this one, though it might stifle my creativity if I did. That's not really the idea behind 11 second club anyway. The art style was a lot more expressive here, and I wanted each pose to be really unique. I also wanted the poses and animations to be really exaggerated to make it more interesting and humourous. Enough talk though, here's the video!

It actually did really well! Surprisingly well, for a first time. It just about scraped the top 50, taking the 53/228. JEEZ. If I keep this up I could eventually make it to at least the top 10.

Qwertee Design: 'Artorias Time'

Another Dark Souls mashup, this time with Adventure Time. I really like Dark Souls okay? This was another idea I had in order to appeal to a larger fanbase. It's based on one of the many hidden details within Dark Soul's lore, in which a Knight named Artorias had a Wolf friend named Sif, until Artorias got consumed by the abyss (I'll stop there because now I sound crazy). I figured a mashup like this would grab people that know the lore of Dark Souls and would get what this is referencing. And of course they might even get the humour of it, taking what is a pretty depressing story and mashing it up with the one of most uplifting duos on TV. I actually got told by someone that they would wear this design if it was a shirt, so clearly I've improved quite a bit, ever since I started making Qwertee designs.

This is what I made:

I think I've learned more than I originally planned from doing Qwertee designs. They're certainly harder and more time-consuming to master than I initially thought! I might make more in the future. I'm pretty satisfied with what I've got, now back to animating (something I haven't done in far too long)!

Qwertee Design: 'Gravity Souls'

For this design, I figured I would try creating a mash-up of two franchises that I enjoy a lot, Dark Souls and Gravity Falls. This may be limiting the target audience to a very select group of people, folks that enjoy both Dark Souls and Gravity Falls together, and that might be a relatively small audience. I didn't mind, though. I just really enjoyed the idea. The cool thing about Qwertee is that they give you a lot of creative freedom with the designs; even if they might not get a lot of votes, they are still worth doing regardless of that. Anyway, I thought I'd create this to see if I could capture the art style of someone else, seeing how it translates with my style, and establishing scenarios in a single image, which I think is a really important method of practicing visual storytelling.

Here it is:

I actually really enjoyed making this! It was a good way to practice different poses, and I think I captured the character's emotions and personalities through body-language perfectly. The scenario presented is clear and, I think, portrays how it would go if it happened in Gravity Falls. I think the Black Knight is well stylised (though I wish I could have made him taller). I think where I fall flat is the background art, though. In case you can't tell, the setting is supposed to be a specific room in Dark Souls in a location called "Undead Burg", but it's not very clear, since I didn't do a great job at colouring it. I might go back to this and resubmit it in the future, since I think that is where the potential could lie. I just have to get good at drawing backgrounds... Oh and you can tell right away that I definitely spent more time on this than I did that crappy Psycho Mantis design.

Qwertee Design: 'Psycho Mantis Reads Your Memories'

For this design, I wanted to develop my new shading technique a lot more, and really wanted to base it on Metal Gear Solid, having only just played it for the first time ever, at the time. Although this time, I tried to work extra fast. Unlike the "Ren is Angry" design, this took a lot less planning and I basically spent an afternoon or less on it. The idea was to parody a rather notorious scene in the game in which the villain, Psycho Mantis, reads the memory card in the Playstation and talks about which games the player enjoys, only instead he's saying "you like Metal Gear Solid, don't you?".

Here's how it turned out:

It wasn't... terrible (I love how I drew the hands, actually), but it wasn't great either. As I said, I thought I could rush this design, assuming a t-shirt was basically something you could easily accomplish in less than a day, but as it turns out it still requires a decent amount of effort. It brought to mind my past errors of rushing a lot of my character designs and pre-development work, rather than actually spending time on them. Oh well, next time, I'll actually work much harder on them, like with my Ren is Angry design (I actually spent more time on that than I did with this).

Rule Britannia Ident Completion/Submission

After a slightly hellish week of doing nothing for this ident, due to my partner's unfortunate illness, we both managed to pull through and get this finished in time for submission. I had to spend a rather hectic weekend finishing the damn thing (as I had to spend time with my family the weekend it was due and I hadn't even started animating it, plus there was no audio! And it had to be done on After Effects, the most unstable glass cannon software on my computer) but I still managed. In order to create the audio, I basically sampled different pieces of the existing ident music (and it sounded pretty damn good when it was slowed down) and also used audio samples of the showreel they gave out. I had no means to create music, so I tried experimenting a little. It was a form of sampling inspired by the video game, Earthbound's soundtrack.

It turned out okay, not a complete mess, but I feel like the chaotic nature of the audio I created fit perfectly with the gritty tone of the ident.

I also took the characters Fiona drew and converted them puppets on After Effects. The process of converting them puppets and animating them actually went quite smoothly. A simple process on After Effects actually went smoothly! Shocking right? I also used some green-screening to add the showreel footage to the TV in the ident. Well, here's what was made in the end! 

Now, unfortunately, since I this finished a night before the deadline day, my partner had a pretty tough time submitting this because the website was lagging like crazy, as it usually does on deadline day. Makes me think: Are there other universities out there with the exact same module as us that stressed people out so much that they couldn't finish the work early maybe? Anyway, here's how the process went, as Fiona screen-grabbed it.

Starting out okay. Basically just wrote the summary that was on the pitch board.

And two hours later, she makes it to page two! 

After much heartache, she manages to upload it 101%!... Wait wut?

Okay that's better! Man, this site gets screwy when you submit it too late.

Okay, finally the thing is submitted and paid for! *exhausted exhale*

And that's it for that brief! It was a long and treacherous road, and we both learned a lot from this, but booooooooyyyyyy am I glad it's over.

Ident Presentation and Feedback

We recently made presentation pitch boards about the ident we're making for Vice, and a lot of people left some helpful feedback, and I'm currently going over the feedback people left and choosing which notes I will consider. Here are the pitch boards we showed, in no particular order:

We got a lot of interesting feedback regarding the ident itself. Sort of mixed overall though. Some people liked it overall whereas some were more critical. One person listed a few suggestions for animation style, and illustrations to look at. I'm open to a few of them, but others I'm not quite sure. For animation styles, they mentioned Ed, Edd, & Eddy, which I guess the show's constant movement is what they're referring to, and I think that could fit in. Joanna Quinn was also suggested, and after looking at her work, I really think it could work as an aesthetic influence but in terms of animation style, I think something like that could only be accomplished using hand-drawn animation, which I wasn't planning on doing. Terry Gilliam was mentioned to, and thinking about how I plan on animating it, I suppose it is very similar to Terry Gilliam's style, just less comedic.The Young Ones opening was suggested too, and I don't really know what to make of that, I mean it's not animated for one thing, it's not really that well-edited either and the style is inherently comedic, so I'm not really sure where they're coming from with that. Ralph Bakshi's animation is rather similar to Joanna Quinn's, with the gritty look. How the city and the backgrounds are drawn in his films could be incorporated into the ident, but again, as this won't be hand-drawn, the animation style couldn't possibly be accomplished.

For the illustrative style, we were compared to punk anarchist, in terms of character design, and I guess that's what Fiona was going for. I think it works, anyway. We were also compared to the Red Bull adverts, as well as Ralph Steadman (if I knew who said that I would totally shake the hell out of their hands!). We were also told to look at Raymond Brigg's Falklands (which I can't seem to find on Google, so I'm just going to assume it's alternate title to When the Wind Blows), which I think works as reference for more gritty tones in animation, but I don't think the imagery is quite that surreal enough to fit. They suggested the Silent Hill comics as well, and I'm not a big comic book fan, but it's interesting to see how the art style of the games translates to comic book form so I'll look into those... Unless they mean the bad Silent Hill comics, that go waaaayyy overboard with their bleak colour pallet.

Ugh... This looks worse than Silent Hill: Homecoming. I'll be sure to warn Fiona about these comics

Ronald Searle was suggested too, and it's a neat art style, but a tad comical, really. Someone mentioned GTA Vice City as a suggestion, and while I do love the graphic novel-esque illustrations, it's far too colourful to incorporate into the ident. But then again, I might try that look out for the Union Jack Sword man, since I'm kind of going for an uncanny valley feel with his design. Speaking of which, a lot of people didn't catch on at all that he was holding a knife. I didn't use a real knife for reference when I designed it so it's no wonder people were confused. It actually looks more like a club than a knife. I'm redesigning it based on a bowie hunting knife now, but still, how I even tried to pass that off as a knife to begin with is beyond me.

Lastly, the rest of the feedback was on the presentation, being filled with too much text, and I agree with that, it should definitely just go straight to the point and present it more visually. The feedback was pretty useful so far. I was going to add a mock-up to the boards as well.

Our Rule Britannia Ident Ideas

Me and my partner have looked at a lot of ideas for this ident. Since it had to be a well-researched and well-thought idea, we've been through enough research and brainstorming to come up with our final idea.

The first idea my partner came up with at first was an establishing shot of a street party with a bunch of British citizens eating dinner together. It was going to focus the group in the party individually and the idea was that these are the types of people you find in Britain.

It's a decent idea to start off with, but I don't think it would have portrayed Britain as realistically as Vice would have wanted.

The second idea was also thought of by my partner, and it was sort of working with the theme of the the first idea, that UK is a place of varying individuals. The idea would have been a digital painting of Buckingham Palace (presumably traced over a photo) with a bunch of Brits and subcultures climbing out of the windows, again symbolising the varying individuals in UK society. I kind of brushed this idea off to be honest, since I didn't really engage with it, plus it kind of painted a pretty picture of Britain when Vice wanted a realistic one.

While my partner was having a blast in Animex, I was still at home thinking about some ideas. I thought about how to incorporate realistic themes into the ident, as well as how bleak I can actually be. I watched the current Rule Britannia ident, and it was... pretty damn bleak. It was literally just an image of the British flag only wrecked. I guess they are fans bleakness and anti-British government imagery. Not only that but the guidelines did say the ident had to portray Britain realistically, so I wondered how I could possibly portray my views on the state of the country realistically. After all, I think I've experienced enough to describe it in my own imagery. I got to thinking about society and how it functions, then I thought about how to incorporate my thoughts into more bleak and surreal images, since my partner wanted to get a bit more gritty during our partnership, and one of the reasons Fiona decided to work with me was that I can be quite dark with my work. Granted, my style is usually more comedic but I can try and go for seriousness this time around.

I was heavily influenced by Silent Hill when I thought of my idea. I developed the idea from Fiona's idea of the dinner party, and I wondered how I could take that idea and make it bleaker. I then thought, "what if they were being watched by eye balls protruding outside the walls?", since I happen to love that type of imagery involving human-like eye balls. I then thought, "what if they weren't even brits but rather minorities, hence the government watching them constantly?". I then remembered that the constant watch minorities get is not just from the government but even most British citizens do it, so I added a much closer brit that is so mistrusting that he watches them with the intent to kill, and he represents the average brit and his ideals. Then I thought "what if they weren't having dinner but instead watching a British Flag on the TV that symbolises British ideals being forced into their minds through TV like propaganda?". At the time I thought this could be well-established with one still image, with some slight motion graphics thrown in.

We wrote a list of ideas on this page. 

I also did an animatic for it. The music used is just to get an idea on what the music would be like.

Fiona liked this idea but was able to improve it. Firstly, she didn't want the people in the video to all be minorities, since the connotations behind that might not be clear to people. She said they should be a group of subcultures/lower class citizens rather than just minorities. I agreed it was a little more appropriate, given the context of the conservative government and upper class brits looking down on lower class brits. They are also no longer watching British propaganda but instead Vice Britannia.

This was developed into a final idea, in which it's basically the same only the setting changed from a generic living room to a tunnel, based on the Las Vegas tunnels that homeless people live in. It would also contain more of a narrative, in which the characters are watching TV but then the man with the Union Jack knife enters, and they all attack him by throwing the TV at him. This has the same connotations as before, but the added ending is symbolic of revolution, the poor fighting back at the upper class for oppressing others.

I think this idea is way more refined, and while it may take more time than I initially hoped to spend on this, I'll still go for it, because I think it conveys the message a bit more, and it gives me and Fiona a chance to be creepy with our animation.

Vice "Rule Britannia" Ident Brief

The brief we chose to work on is Vice's Rule Britannia brief. They need a 10 - 15 second ident for their web series, Rule Britannia, that'll play before every video. It had to be one that reflects the reality of what goes on in the United Kingdom. It had to be well-researched, and effectively portraying the themes of the series. The ident also had to appeal to a demographic of 16-30 year olds. So the target audience is actually a very broad one, and it gives us enough creative freedom to work well with.

Collaborative Briefs: Which to Choose

Having chosen my partner now, we were looking at three different briefs from the website D&AD. There were a bunch to choose from, but we chose to look at these three, because they seemed to be the most likely to do given the time we have (plus it we HAD to because the tutors said we had to choose between three).

WWF: Open Brief to inspire young people to look after the planet:
This was suggested by my partner because she figured we might have more of a shot at this, seeing as it's an open brief and if we were to create an animation, as opposed to everybody else who would probably create a poster, or a web banner or something like that. I'd be up for that, although I do hate awareness campaigns, but this would be a good addition to our portfolios as it shows that we can create an animation for something beyond our comfort zone. The problem, however, is that the mandatory length of a video, if that's being submitted, is two minutes, and that would take way too much time to make.

wetransfer: Create an image of yourself in 10 years:
This is one I figured would be fun and easy to do. That's basically the gist of it, draw how you see yourself in ten years. I figured how this project would work is we'd help each other out with the illustrations and submit our images separately. If we decide to change our minds to this last-minute it actually wouldn't be much of a hassle too.

Vice UK: Create a 10 - 15 second ident for Vice Britannia:
I chose this one as well because it would be easy to make. I for one am not a big fan of Vice at all, but I am a fan of doing one ten - fifteen second animation! My partner agrees as well and thinks this would be a good brief to go for. I think it would be a great challenge to be creative, as a ten second animation can be challenging to be memorable. I'm thinking we could make something shocking and engaging.

Finding a Collaborative Partner

For my brief, I wanted to be picky with my partner. The one I had chosen already decided to work with someone else unfortunately so that left wondering who else I could work with. I wanted to pick someone who is well-organised, and is good at drawing and animating. It also had to be someone I like too, because while I would need to know how to work with someone that's not too close to me, I think when working in twos, it has to be someone I respect, can rely on, and enjoy their company. If I'm paired with a stranger who I risk hating then work simply can't be done efficiently. I'd like to learn, but I would much rather get work done effectively.

I think collaboration is very important for somebody working in animation, because animation is not something that can be done overnight alone, it has be a team of people generating ideas, and working simultaneously. A lot of people celebrate the idea of being more introverted, but that won't actually get you anywhere quickly. There's always something you need another person to help you with, or even do for you.

I wanted to work with a friend, as all as a talent at drawing and animation. I think highly of my own skills at animating, and feel that applying those skills alongside another talented person would result in great results. They would also have to be talented at an aspect that I'm not great at doing, such as painting or background art, I'm more of an inker and a character animator so backgrounds/landscapes/buildings are my enemies. I wanted a friend too because, as I said before, I don't like the idea of working with a stranger at this point in time, especially if I want to get work done and I know if the partner can be efficient. I'm not in the right position to be paired with a stranger at this point in my life.

I want to pick an animation brief. It's not really recommended because a lot of animators will be picking an animation brief, but I don't really care about winning. I'm doing this to learn so actually winning a competition brief is more on the back of my mind than anything else. It would be cool if I did win, but I'm not really bothered either way. Besides, I'm going to be animating with people in the future so I might as well develop the skills now.

Qwertee Design: Ren & Stimpy

I've been looking into doing some designs for Qwertee, to practice my character design, illustration skills, and m ability to reach an audience. Since I'm not a popular artist by any means, I wanted to see how well my designs could reach audiences, because I've always felt there was kind of a popularity contest in this environment; and Qwertee basically picks and chooses which new designs get featured, and they're always the designs that are likely to win. Otherwise, the only way to get enough votes to be printed on a shirt is if you were popular enough for people to vote for it if you asked them too. I figured I would still put a lot of effort into each one because while I am rather cynical towards the system of Qwertee being that the most noticed design wins, I still want to learn new skills, and I might actually get lucky for a change too.

My first design is based on a rather popular scene from The Ren & Stimpy Show, where Ren Hoek gets so mad at Stimpy that he very calmly, but angrily, describes in detail how he's going to kill him. It was a really funny scene that most fans of the show talk about when the series is brought up. I chose to design a shirt based on Ren & Stimpy because it seemed that there were no designs for that show, which was strange because it has enough of a following for people to buy shirts and there is quite a bit of potential for possible shirt designs. I guess it's one of those shows you have to be reminded of before realising you enjoy it. I figured this shirt would stand out, since it's the only design based on Ren & Stimpy, and I might make a few more based on this cartoon in the future.

I first wondered which part of the scene I chose I could develop into the design. It had to be a key part, with a quote that people would recognise. I decided, in the end, that it should be the moment Ren says "I'm so angry", because first of all, that line along with the keyframe summed up the whole scene perfectly; secondly, it has a very specific key frame for Ren as he's saying the line that stands out incredibly well and could work as the image used for the design.

This is how it turned out in the end, and for my first time designing a t-shirt, and being not the most confident about my illustration skills, I think it holds up extremely well. As you can probably tell, I took the frame I mentioned and traced over it, but added a lot more detail to it, since just drawing the same frame without adding anything would be kind of boring. I developed a rather neat shading technique from this, by using heavy black shadow giving it a very edgy look. I tried to make the imagery edgy and comedic to make this memorable and cool looking. I think this has convinced me to continue submitting Qwertee designs, among other designs for sites like this.

My Syfy Brief

I wrote down what I plan on creating for the Syfy brief in this sheet in my own words, so that you could get a better understanding on what I plan to create.

This isn't exactly a finalised brief; depends if it's straight-forward enough or that I have the right idea about what I want to do. I might lower the frame rate a tad. While I am planning on using short little tweens for the animation, that would move very smoothly, it might change over time to frame-by-frame animation, simply because it has it's own appeal, and I might enjoy it a lot more.

Responding to my Target Audience: Imagery

I was wondering what sort of imagery is actually appealing to my target audience. By that I mean, what colours, symbolism, and art style will grab their attention? I thought a lot about this, since this is a key aspect for my brief, and, as an animator, I should always be thinking about everything visually. So what sort of imagery actually appeals to my target audience?

One thing's for sure, I should always remember one huge key thing. Simplicity. As much as you might want to deny it, it is a fact that simple looking images are far more appealing to the brain than huge and complex images. This usually refers to images comprised of solid colours, simple shapes, and a distinct lack of realism. As an example of this, here are screenshots of two animes with entirely different styles, one very simple and the other more detailed:

Most likely, your eyes were drawn to the latter image, despite being slightly smaller and lower down than the first image. It automatically stands out more because of its vibrant solid colours, and dynamic lines. The first image is more dull and realistic, which your eye is instantly drawn away from.

Ironically, though, images can actually be too simple, and it instead becomes unappealing. Creating simple images is one thing, but an important key factor is that it needs to come to life, still be well-drawn, and contain at least SOME semblance of realism. I'm going take one of the 12 principles of animation as an example, as it applies to art in general. The principle known as "Solid Drawing" describes images that give people a sense of solidity, as the name suggests, depending on how it is drawn. This is done by drawing an image as if it was a three-dimensional object, rather than a simple 2D image on a canvas.

This image, taken from The Simpsons Handbook by Matt Groening, explains why a 2D image looks really bad without the solid drawing principle in mind. If the character appears to exist in a 3D plain, it just automatically looks better. 

I made this image to describe in my own words this concept. Perhaps I've gone into detail a bit too much, but this is important for people working mainly in 2D, like me.

Now with all that said, how does this apply to my target audience exactly? Well, quite a bit actually. The target audience is fairly young, for starters, which means their minds are still at the development stage, so simple 2D images would look especially appealing to them. Since they are sci-fi fans as well, I should also apply this entire concept with the genre signifiers that I mentioned in a previous post.

Responding to my Target Audience: Genre Signifiers

Colour actually plays an important role in this as well. An audience searching for a specific genre will likely find a specific colour that comes along with it. They are just one of many genre signifiers. All genres for visual mediums are given key signifiers that represent what type of medium audiences are consuming. In fact, that's literally the definition of a genre. It is one of many aspects of human nature we take for granted, the need to simplify/label everything so that it instantly makes sense to us. Though, what is a genre signifier? Everybody should know already, but haven't quite thought about it yet. A genre signifier is one aspect of any given genre that defines it.

A genre signifier for any visual medium would be a specific type of mise-en-scene that would normally be associated with that medium. A horror movie, for example, would normally contain very dark and bleak colours (usually red, because of the association with blood and danger, and black, because of its association with the dark), threatening monsters, and very serious, edgy, subtle body language (from human characters). A comedy, on the other hand, depending on what type of comedy it would be, would use more vibrant colours, exaggerated body language, and typically a real-world setting. A comedy and horror hybrid would combine these two types of images, exaggerating the red and black colours (whilst also making them more vibrant), using threatening monsters but depicting them in a comedic manner, and using human characters with exaggerated scares and body language.

In order to appeal to sci-fi fans, I will look at whatever visual genre signifiers I can find.

Colours: Usually, a sci-fi will emphasise heavily on blue colours, since the blue will remind audiences of space and high tech. Green is typically used for sci-fi films about aliens, because those two are things that people will associate with each other, despite aliens rather rarely being depicted as green. White is usually used for sci-fi films set in a futuristic utopia, brown and grey for apocalyptic future settings, and black and dark blue for dystopian future settings.

Mise en Scene: High tech machines and objects are normally used for sci-fi films. The clothing of a character would either be a funky looking uniform for a space crew, or some bizarre outfit as a futuristic fashion choice. If the film is about monsters, they wouldn't be supernatural creatures/myths like vampires, werewolves, etc., they would normally be some kind of mutated version of existing creatures, usually insects, sea creatures, and reptiles (and at one point, clowns). The marketing of the films, if they were targeted towards men, would normally depict a nameless scantily clad woman in danger (normally in the 50s but occasionally nowadays as well).

Non-verbal Communication: Mainly in a marketing standpoint, a sci-fi poster would usually show a character brandishing a laser gun, or any kind of high tech weapon, within the poster of an action/sci-fi. A sci-fi monster movie would either show the monster in a threatening pose or fighting another monster, both of which next to a skyscraper in a city to emphasise scale. There would also be a group of the main characters looking in terror at the monsters. The poster of a film set in the future would usually show a character looking up, presumably at the world around them, with a stunned expression on their face, to establish the spectacle of this world. In a dystopian future, the narrative is more bleak so there wouldn't be as much focus an the characters' entire bodies, just their serious facial expressions, and possibly a weapon they have held in front of their faces.

Responding to my Target Audience: Overview

The brief I have chosen for Responsive describes their target audience simply as "18-25 year old sci-fi fans". They obviously make it sound like a simple audience because if they went onto full detail about their target audience, it would be too overwhelming for people if they looked at "Target Audience" and saw a huge essay about several groups of people. I can see where they are coming from, though, even with that vague description. Very quickly, though, I'm going to take a look at two key target audience types:

Primary Audience: This describes the audience a product would focus on, mainly; that would mean adapting a product or content that fits the needs of a very specific group of people.

Secondary Audience: An audience a product would appeal to without even trying to. This could be due to said audience being related in some way to the primary audience of a type of product or content; for example, parents watching a kid's show with their children would be said kid's show's secondary audience, while the kids are the primary audience.

This relates heavily to how I plan on appealing to my target audience, so I'm going to try and translate what Syfy calls "18-25 year old sci-fi fans" into something more literal. I'm going to apply more audience theory into this, but I won't explain things like "Segmenting Psychographics" or even just the aspects like "The 4 Cs" and "Social Classes" or else we're gonna be here forever, so I'm going to describe what I think Syfy's target audience comprise of, with reference to "Segmenting Psychographics".

When I think of 18-25 year old sci-fi fans, within the context of this brief, I immediately think of huge nerds, like me; to be specific, I think of people who are fans of TV, cinema, and anime; typically follow the action, comedy, horror, and fantasy (as well as sci-fi, obviously), and are particularly into cheesy cult films. I don't have a specific race or gender in mind, and let's keep it that way! I have nothing against appealing to this audience. I actually think they have the right idea, too.

Of course, that's only the tip of the ice berg, I want to go way deeper now. Potential secondary audiences could be audiences between the ages 7-13 years old, watching these shows with an older sibling or even their parents. I, personally, watched shows like Buffy and Angel rather religiously when I was at least nine years old, so there's no denying this. Not only that, but children generally have an interest in shows or movies considered too mature for them. The more mainstream audiences, fans of more popular stuff from Syfy's competing networks (Channel 4, E4, ITV 1 & 2, etc.) could find something appealing about the Syfy channel, too. Thanks to shows like The Big Bang Theory, Parks & Recreation, and other shows/movies with "typical nerd" character types, "geek culture" is more mainstream nowadays, so it might appeal to fans of more popular TV and Film. A more mature audience of 35 years and up might even find this channel appealing as well, since these are the type of people who may get a sense of relaxation from watching cheesy cult shows/movies, since people that age normally go through everyday stress from work and seek comfort from the TV they watch, so they wouldn't really want something that would make them "think" too much.

Brief Selection - Part 2: Syfy Brief - What is the Problem?

Syfy set up a YCN brief recently, due to their apparent loss of viewers, and it very much fit in with what I wanted to achieve from this module. I'm happy to do this because it seems very relevant to me, personally. This is a good opportunity to understand audiences better, especially within the realm of entertainment and storytelling. What do I specifically need to know first?

For starters, what are the problems the brief describes?

Syfy has been losing viewing figures lately, and there are multiple reasons for this. Audiences are not appreciating the content of Syfy enough to see the channel as anything relevant on the same level as other TV channels, and don't see it as a place to go for sci fi. They are often overlooked because they must compete with higher budget TV channels, some that aren't sci fi oriented, that air sci fi of higher quality to conventional audiences. Syfy doesn't have the budget to broadcast Hollywood blockbusters, and they are overlooked because of this.

So I know the problem, but what are they asking me to do about it? What do they want to achieve?

They seem intent on letting a target audience of sci fi fans of the age range 18 to 25 know that the level of passion they have for sci fi is extremely high and that my work should convince them of that. They are asking me to make something, it could be anything since this is an open brief, that will communicate the idea that the Syfy brand is a creative and imaginative one, and that the Syfy channel should be sold more for what it represents ("Imagine Greater") than just the content they air.

Who will benefit from this, though?
This will be beneficial for Syfy, of course. They want sci fi fans to see Syfy as a creative environment, where people go to fulfil their need for something imaginative. Audiences will also benefit from this, if what they gain from this is as great as Syfy wants it to be.

What message are they trying to convey?
Quite simply, they want to send the message that they are a more than a channel, but a creative realm of ideas. They are fun and entertaining, imaginative, can enrich people's lives, passionate about the sci fi genre. That Syfy is a place for sci fi fans, by sci fi fans. To be the ultimate fan!

Who exactly are the audience for this brief
I highlight "exactly" because while the brief only says "18-25 sci fi fans", I believe it goes much deeper than that, but I'll go more into detail with this in a later post. To put it simply, the target audience is not race and gender biased. They are people that enjoy sci fi, good story-telling, engaging stories, and fun ideas.

So we know the message and the audience, we just need to know how the message will be delivered.
Going by these bullet points in the brief:

• Be the ultimate fan
• Be impactful
• Be engaging
• Be playful
• Be surprising

They're kind of vague, but I can see where they're coming from. They want whatever I make to establish that they are huge fans of sci fi, and they want to do it in a manner that relates to the genre, while being light-hearted about it. They also want my work to have an impact and to do that, I need to engage with their audience's love for surprise and the unexpected.

Can I foresee any issues with this brief?
I don't think so. I guess the fact that this is an open brief is kind of overwhelming, because I'm not sure what I could make that relates to my area of practice. I guess an ident would be the most appropriate.