E4 Sting: Experimental Animation Project

E4 Sting: Experimental Animation Project

Introduction

This was another part of the experimental animation brief. We also had to create a ten second E4 'sting' which is short piece of video that is played between adverts to promote the channel. These are known to be odd and experimental at times. Therefore, from our experimental animation we also had to create an E4 Sting. This had to be related to our experimental animation in some way and couldn't be something completely different. We do also have the option to submit these to the E4 sting competition next year if we choose to. We were constrained by time and what we had; therefore this was a challenge. we were given the resources that we would need which were: the logo and a range of music that can be used but we could only select one of the music pieces they gave us. 

Production

Initial

Because the E4 sting had to be inspired by our experimental, I first created my experimental animation and then created the E4 Sting. From this i generated ideas and storyboarded them. Here are some storyboards I created:

As you can see this first storyboard was not related to my experimental in style but did have a monkey in it. However I knew this wouldn't be the one I would use because it wasn't directly related to my experimental. I mainly used this to get into the mood of creating a wacky scenario for the sting to take place.

This second storyboard was going in the right direction but felt too short or was missing something; therefore I created another storyboard that added something to it.

I added another aspect to the sting and felt that was the right one to go with as this was the most appropriate and best idea out of the three. 

Production

I started by drawing the extra frames I would need that were not already in the experimental which were the frog catching flies and catching the E4 logo. 

I then scanned those drawings and took the drawings of the frog jumping from the experimental and put them together in Flash to make the video. 

I then added the flies using the paint tool on flash. I also used Photoshop to create the purple splat at the end of the video where the E4 logo squashes the frog. 

Video

This is the final video with the chosen soundtrack:

Link to video on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22_Lro2dEqw

Link to video on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/144816068

Conclusion

Being only a short ten second promotional video, I am pleased with the result. This is because I managed to complete the video within the time limit and have it feel like a E4 Sting. This is because I initially believed I would 'over think' the sting and make it too complex or unappealing. I like the simplicity of the charcoal and the limited colours being: purple, black and white therefore making the purple stand out.
If I were to create this video again and follow the same process, I would improve this by: making the frog more dynamic and adding a sense of character by adding 'qwerks' and other personality traits. This is because the frog within the video seems generic and doesn't really express any motivation besides eating flies. I would do this by making the frog seem excited or happy to see a fly, or to show that the frog is greedy by wanting more flies.
In conclusion I am pleased with the result of this video and process, however there are aspects that I would change if I were to do this project again.