A Brief history of E4
E4 is a channel that is run by the Channel 4 Television Corporation and was launched on January 18th 2001 so has been around for nearly 13 years. Most of E4's program's are comedies such as The Ricky Gervais Show, Skins and The Inbetweeners and they also have a lot of american import shows such as The Big Bang Theory, The Cleveland Show, How I Met Your Mother, Smallville and Scrubs. These are some of the more regular and popular showings on E4 however they do have a wider variety. I would say that the primary target audience for E4 is teenagers and mainly British teenagers as well. I say this because although there are a lot of american shows on E4 British people still watch them and find them funny where as if you get something like The Inbetweeners and show it to an American audience chances are that they wouldn't find it very funny. This is because of how unique The Inbetweeners is to a British audience, the reason we find it so funny is because it appeals to our demographic and this is because we can relate to it because it takes very British things and makes them funny so it's much easier for us to relate to and find humorous.
When you start to look into Psychographic profiles for the channel you can start to see that due to the wide range of shows that are being shown they really do try to hone into the 40% of the population, the mainstreamers and mostly the 'norm' of the population however I would say that this would include the individuals as well because they are often young and hard to put into a category. So with there main target audience being Teenagers of the British public and mostly being that 40% of the population who is their secondary audience? I would say their secondary audience is mainly young adults between 20-30 but the thing about this channel is they have such a wide variety of shows that it can attract almost anyone. For example I am a 17 year old student who enjoys most of the content on E4 and whilst my parents won't watch The Big Bang theory they will quite happily sit their and watch The Inbetweeners. It's hard to narrow down a secondary audience but I would say young adults in specific whilst still keeping the same Psychographic British Audience, although some American channels would have picked up the British program's such as The Inbetweeners so that an american audience can still view it despite not having access to the channel E4. Other channels owned by the Channel 4 Television corporation include Channel 4, More4, Film4 followed by a long list of music channels such as 4Music, Kerrang, KissTV, Magic, Heat and many more. By the list of other channels owned it seems that the target audience for E4 is not just for that channel but for the whole Channel 4 Television Corporation as most of the channels they own and the program's they show seem to be primarily aimed at a Teenage or Young Adult audience making it seem that the conventions apply to not only the channel but the Corporation itself.
E4 & The Estings
The main question about all of this really has to be what is an Esting? An Esting is listen in the urban dictionary as copying "the personality, clothing and/or social group of a person." So the fact that there are E4 Estings could raise a lot of question however I think the most accurate response for a E4 is Esting is about trying to take what the channel stands for and what the channel's personality is and then condense that into a 10 second channel ident. This way it's advertisement for the channel whilst accurately summing up what E4 is all about for a new audience member into a quick 10 second video. E4 has got many Estings, some more memorable and creative than others but here are just a few.
The content in this Esting displays a clear Sci-Fi genre and the sound track supports this perfectly. I would say the audience for this genre is fairly wide but mainly it would be for young adults. I say this because there are a lot more Sci-Fi based things that are older and the younger generation are not likely to have seen so the Sci-Fi genre is more aimed towards a slightly older audience. What I like about this particular Esting is narrative and what happens in it, also I like the colors and how vibrant they are, it really catches you eye and stands out which makes it a lot easier to become engrossed with whats going on.
For this Esting I would say that the content showed displays a Comedy genre and this is shown really well through some of the facial expressions used. I think that once again this is aimed at an audience for teenagers and young adults, the reason I think this is because of the choice of actress in it. She is clearly a young person and very attractive so they use this to their advantage and cleverly use the male gaze to bring in their target audience. There are many things I like about this Esting, one is the smoothness of it and how fluid it is in movements like when she is spinning around, it plays with the possibilities of stop motion animation really well and it looks very effective as a result of that.
I would say that the content for this Esting is again of the Comedy genre and aimed strongly at a teenage audience but also young adults. The way the animation moves and what actually happens in the narrative is very comical especially to a more immature audience so it pays off really well and appeals to the target audience very effectively. Something that I really like about this Esting is the combination of live action animation and claymation, it works in a very unique way but looks very professional, smooth and clean in the finish especially due to how well modeled the characters are.
Planning & Preparation
In order to accurately respond to the brief some planning and preparation took place before hand to help use gather an understanding of how animation works and the best ways to effectively manipulate them. We started by looking at some of the oldest forms of animation and began to work our way forward to the modern day.
The first form of animation we looked at was the Thaumatrope and the aim here was to draw to separate images and when spun on a piece of paper with string at each end it would combine each image to create the illusion of one image instead of two separate ones.
The next form of animation we looked at was the Zoetrope and this was our first look at how actually animation techniques take place. The aim here was to create a sequence of images that when spun gave the illusion of movement. This was a bit more difficult than the previous one and required more time and effort however for the best results it was advised to use a sequence that was continuous so the end would link to the beginning.
The next form of animation we looked at was the Praxinoscope. This was very similar to the Zoetrope however instead of watching it through little slits the illusion of movement was created through the use of mirrors. The aim her was similar to before, create a sequence that when spun around would create the illusion of movement however when drawing it out we had to be careful otherwise we could slip into the next frame.
The first form of modern animation we looked at was claymation. The objective her was to create a Clay character, in my case it was Oreo the Raccoon, then move them ever so slightly each frame so we can create the illusion of movement. If done carefully this could look very effective and realistic.
The final form of animation we looked at was Live action. The main aim here was again to create the illusion of movement through multiple images. This could be down in many creative ways, my group done Mario kart and by making cardboard cut outs and moving them a little bit each frame it would give the illusion that the karts are moving however many different and unique methods of travel can be developed this way.
My planned Esting
After looking at what I have made I have decided that I will make a live action animation for my E4 Esting as opposed to a claymation one due to how much hassle it took making a claymation animation. Although it was hard making a live action one as well I personally found it even harder working with clay as if something fell over you couldn't control it and movements were harder to control in a subtly way. For this reason I will be making a Live action animation Esting for E4.
Jack,
ReplyDeleteBrilliantly comprehensive - well done. D awarded.
EllieB