Pre-Production Project Research

For this module, I am using recordings of children answering questions to develop an animation. There will be 6 animated 'shorts' which I am imagining to be played in between children's television programs, not as adverts, but more as an ident promoting World Children's Day.

I imagine them being used in a similar way to the CBBC blob idents, which introduced the program after adverts. I felt that because there are 6 of the shorts, it would be best to split them up and broadcast them individually and at different times, rather than joining them all together and playing them all in a row. This helps bring out the individuality of each short animation and will hopefully make each one more memorable.

These CBBC idents are from the early 2000's and are something I remember very clearly from growing up around this time. They were memorable due to the fact that they were played after the adverts and signaled the beginning of the program I was waiting to watch. They served a purpose and regained my attention, as a child, from the boredom of adverts. However, I would still be interested to watch the animation, so I don't feel like if I were to use my animations in the same way, that they would be skimmed over. Especially if they include dialogue and serve more as a story, rather than an informative advert.

Another animated project that serves a similar purpose to mine is the Aardman classic, Creature Comforts. This is an animated series that was very important to me, in terms of introducing me to the world of animation. Not only was it brilliantly executed, but it was also funny. It turned people's every day stories into something I could sit and watch for hours.

This has been a main inspiration for me during this particular module as it holds a very similar purpose. Just like Creature Comforts, my animated shorts are based off of interviews. Although I haven't put such a huge twist on my animations (with Creature Comforts turning their human interviewees into animals), I still feel like mine will be entertaining as the content is fairly humorous. I have however turned the characters in my animation into something other than humans, which is very similar. I did consider turning them into animals, but I was worried this may turn out to be far more time consuming.