This document provides details for an animation pitch for a 30 second ident for an online TV channel called Bubblextra, which targets ages 8-14. The ident will be created using stop motion animation with playdough. It outlines the concept, characters, colors, lighting, limitations, storyline, audio considerations, continuity, and importance of smooth movement. The ident will feature a green monster, purple octopus, and group of red clay men interacting to represent the channel and its programs.

1. Animation PitchLeah Reay

2. Purpose
• The purpose of this task is by the end of it i
should have created a 30 second ident for an
online TV channel. There are some examples
below of some popular idents.
The difference between these and the
purpose of mine is that mine is going
to be made and created by stop
motion.

3. Concep
tThe concept of my ident is going to be based on a new channel that has
recently been created which is called bubblextra. The main target audience
for this channel will be ages 8 - 14. Within the ident i will show a variety of
the different programmes that are aired on it and collide them togeher. There
are not many programmes on this channel; a lot of them will be based on
monsters etc. The channel will be targeted at both boys and girls. The
materials i am going to use for this ident will mainly be playdough and metal
wiring to have movement with the playdough. My inspiration for this idea
came from the frequent research i did on some playdough stop motion
videos.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzDJQoUdTuk from looking at this link i
found that it helped me in my research because it is such a smooth
movement although the idea and concept of this link is not similar to mine
but it gave me some insight in how to make my movements smoother to
create a less jolty effect.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHEkuxS3l4U This video clip gave me
more of a visual idea on how i wanted mine to look.

4. Lightin
g
As I will be using a white backdrop for my background this will give me the opportunity to really work with the
lighting. I will probably use a blue light on some of my monster characters to represent there characteristics
in the ident. In general the lighting overall will be natural lighting and will be reasonably bright. When the clay
army come onto the screen from the back of the set I will use a spot light effect to focus the attention onto
them characters.
This will be what the white
backdrop is going to be
like with the spotlight
effect.
This will be similar to the colour of
lighting I will be using which will
be a blue colour on the white
backdrop.

5. Colour
-The colour of the letters bubble will be blue.
-The colour of the letters xtra will be pink.
-The colours of the first monster character will be a green.
-The second monster which is the octopus, this character will be purple.
-The group of clay men will be red.
- The backdrop will be white.

6. Characters
This character is one of
the main charcters
throughout the
animation.
This is one of the main
characters there will be
multiples of these.
This is also one of the
main characters
throughout the
animation.
In terms of characters I will have 2 main characters and one background character
which will be the main part of the production. They will each hold a main role
throughout the animation clip and each have a strong unique style. I decided I would
only have three characters as I did not feel any more where needed otherwise it may
look to crowded on the set, seeing as it was set on a3 piece of paper. It may also
have got slightly complicated with so many characters on set which I probably
wouldn't have been able to handle. This would have resulted in a downgrade in the
overall smoothness of what is happening on screen.

7. Character - Green
Monster
The first character I thought of was the Green Monster. This
was the very first main character as I decided it would be the
first character on screen. I designed the shape of the
monster including all of the features on it so it did not look
terrifying as I had to bear in mind it was an animation directed
at a children's audience. To keep the monster from looking to
scary I added a smile onto its face which cancelled out
anything that came across as to much for children's viewing.
However, I wanted there to remain some scary aspects so I
added claws and horns which still connotes the idea of
something being frightening.

8. Character - Purple
Octopus
The second character I designed was the purple
octopus. The aim of designing the purple octopus
character was to make it the most friendly one
amongst all three characters as I wanted an even
balance of frightening and scary characters due to it
being targeted at 4-10 year olds. The octopus
character had a basic shape and design to it as I
simply copied the style of a real life octopus.
However, The octopus I drew was carbonised to suit
the arts and crafts theme.

9. Character - Red Man
My final character was named the red man. This character
had the most simple basic design of all. My main reason for
choosing such a simple design on my final character was
because when filming there would be more than one of this
character and it would be duplicated into around 4-5. I
made the decision to make it such a simple design as it
would have been a difficult task to move around each one
without anything falling or breaking of the character. I feel
by choosing the simplistic design it resulted in a smooth
movement in the end result as I had more manoeuvrability
with each individual one.

10. Colour - Green
Monster
In terms of colour I went with a light green for the main body
and a darker green to add smaller features like mouth,horns
and claws. I decided to go with a darker colour green for
features to make them easily recognisable and stand out as
there was huge use of colour through the different
characters. The colour green was used to attract the boy
audience to my channel as green is known for being a
popular colour amongst boys.

11. Colour - Purple
Octopus
The colour chosen for my octopus character was purple with small
pink dots. I chose this colour mainly to attract the female side of
the audience as it was important I remained to target both boys
and girls. I believe by using purple I will manage to keep a strong
female audience viewing. As the purple octopus was supposed to
be the least frightening character I specifically chose a brighter
colour which automatically takes away the sense of something
being scary.

12. Colour - Red Man
I chose the colour red as it was a simple basic colour
that had not yet been chosen. I also felt i represented
both boys and girls so remained a mutual colour for the
stop motion animation. I also went with the choice of red
as they will be coming from the back of the setting as if
they are coming out of the white backdrop. The colours
white and red both contrast well together which will
make a big impact as they are coming towards the
screen.

13. Colour - Backdrop
and letters
My backdrop will be a bright white. I have gone for the colour
white so i would then be able to chose from a variety of different
colours without having to worry about colours clashing with the
back setting. which could have been a problem.
The reason i have chosen to use blue for the word bubble and
pink for the word xtra is to represent the fact that the channel is
targeted at both boys and girls.

14. Limitations.
I found when I was drawing up some ideas that I had to go back and change most
of them as a lot of them were not realistic to do with stop motion. Some of the
limitations I faced where the amount of characters I got to use. as you have to
move each individual character I had to narrow it down too 3 or 4 instead of 5 which
I previously wanted to have. The actual software i will be using is very basic
animation software so it prevented me from being able to film in the way I wanted to
which was moving the camera around more in tracking shot motion but it would of
been to difficult to do. Also the budget I had was very limited so i had to be wise
about the materials I chose to use, this resulted in me having to work with clay
instead of play dough.

15. Storyline
The idea what I was going for was the green man comes onto
the screen and pops balls of clay out that then form into the
letter bubble. The octopus then makes an appearance and
drops the letters extra next to bubble which forms the words
bubble extra. To clear everything of the screen I introduced
the red men into the mix who messed up all the letters on
screen. This resulted in the green man vacuuming up the
mess of clay on set. The green man slides into the middle of
the screen and says goodbye to the audience. I chose to add
in a wave at the end as I feel it makes it more personally
targeted at my audience.

16. Audio
In terms of audio I was not entirely sure until filming was
completely finished and I watched the animation back. Audio was
not something I thought out until the very end as it was not a huge
worry until then. Once the production had been filmed I tried
numerous different sound tracks over the top of the clip, I felt that
none of them worked very well or they had been used before on a
kids channel which is not what I was going for. I decided to record
my own sound effects through the use of garage band. This
allowed me to experiment with the sounds and also gave me a lot
of freedom to work with the sounds I am using. I was able to
record an individual style of sound for each character including
when the letters came on screen. This resulted in a much better
end result than if I was to play one soundtrack over the top.

17. Continuity
Editing and taking into consideration continuity is ensuring
the editor cuts the film together in a smooth and clear
storyline in one fluid action movement. A film that has good
continuity editing will be understandable to the audience very
easily with a clear storyline line that happens from start to
finish ensuring that the clarity is shown all the way
throughout. The idea of continuity editing is to allow space,
time and action to progress in a smooth movement over
numerous different shots. In terms of continuity throughout
the animation I feel this was one of my strong points as I had
my doubts at the beginning about the possibility of clay falling
or mushing together. However, each time that happened it
was corrected therefor there was no continuity errors.

18. Consideration Of movement
In terms of the movement of
characters and letters I ensured each
movement was small and only inches
at a time. This ensured each
movement was refined and smooth.
When the animation gets played back
it will be extremely smooth. Although
this will take time it will be worth it for
such a fluent movement across the
screen