T4 - Understanding the design of idents

This ident shows a plug winding around 2/3 rings and plugging into the 4Music logo, lighting it up. Each of the rings shows a different area of christmas, the green ring shows the traditional christmas tree, the blue shows pine cones and the yellow shows presents. The design of the ident tells us when it should be shown, the dark background suggests that this would be an evening ident with the logo being like a christmas tree and lit up at night. This ident lasts 13 seconds and is quite fast paced as a result. And it appeals to audiences with the use of bright colours and christmas theme, a holiday celebrated globally. Its most definitely entertainment as most people know what channel they are watching and tells you the channel at the end of the ident. It gives me the impression that they will be celebrating christmas in the form of music.



In this christmas ident, we see people doing generic things that are done at christmas time, such as wrapping presents, writing cards and drinking and eating mince pies. There isn't a whole lot of information included to tell us about the channel other than that they will be playing christmas songs over winter. The ident lasts 28 seconds which should be long enough for the majority of program information. The onscreen tempo mixed but mainly very fast, with shots changing within a few seconds of each other. It appeals to the viewer by offering a happy and cheerful place to listen to christmas during christmas time, and is entirely entertainment led using the image of a modern christmas to appeal to a mass audience. This gives me the impression that the channel, like most channels, celebrate christmas.



This ident for MTV Hits features different blobs moving in tune with the music, mimicking various dance moves. The ident doesn't reveal the channel name until the very end, with each lasting around 10-15 seconds. The onscreen tempo for each ident changes but is generally fast paced and uses this to distinguish between genres and channels with the use of different styles, for example, in one ident club music is used whereas in another soul is used to appeal to a different audience. These idents are more entertainment based but don't miss out on the opportunity to advertise the channel. These idents give me the impression that this channel will play a mixture of popular music.



This ident for 4Music shows two people dancing around a petrol station and the design tells us the channel through the distinctive pink and white colour scheme. It lasts about 30 seconds of fast paced dance and music to appeal to a younger audience. It does this as well by using a particular type of music and dance. And again this ident is mainly entertainment led but still tells the viewer where they are. I get the impression that this channel would show a lot of current and mainstream music.



This suite of idents show several parties through the viewpoint of a snowglobe which then gets shaken up. The design tells us what time of year it its and that MTV will be showing christmas-ee stuff. Each ident lasts around 15 seconds and have a speedy tempo. It uses different types of parties to appeal to a different viewer base; the first uses a rocker party, the second uses a generic party to advertise MTV Hits, and the third uses a club to appeal to that audience. The idents are mostly information based to show which MTV channel the viewer is on through the use of music and having the channel name onscreen for the majority of the ident. It gives me the impression these channels play a variety of music between them.

Summary

A common theme throughout the idents is the use of movement, and how the music in the background fits the visuals and can be manipulated such as in the MTV snowglobes idents. Common key conventions used are bright colours, animation/animation-like movements and a sense of humour. Elements I need to include in my ident are humour and manipulation of the diegetic world (either with time or animation).

Suite analysis



These idents are part of the Snowglobe suite used by MTV over christmas 2009. The others fit in with the rest of the suite by showing the view of a club/party through a snowglobe that gets shaken up. It is different from the rest in the suite by the setting and the channel it was used for as well as the audience it is trying to appeal to. I would expect the ident to be shown at all times, maybe more likely to be seen at night or in the evening. And to appear next to a program about music or after/before a song.