It's Nice That/Anyways Brief - Final Outcome & Evaluation

Final Outcome

The final outcome is an Art & Culture themed ident for the hypothetical 'Channel Nought'. The theme of the ident is presented using a Robe Goldberg machine. The machine was constructed using objects and materials that relate to the theme of Art & Culture. It was also built within a set design that also contains objects and references to the theme. Such objects were: books, CD's, candles, advertising, playing cards, wine, postcards, marbles, lighters and etc. The concept behind the set design was to create a representation of a living area of someone who would watch Art & Culture shows. In doing this, the aim was to make the ident feel familiar and relatable to its audience. The Rube Goldberg machine designed for the ident completed three tasks, it filled a glass of wine, pushed marbles down guitar strings, and knocked a cup away from a pile of confetti. The glass of wine and marbles were secondary outcomes, who's purpose were to aid the communication of the concept and generate interesting sound effects. The knocking of a cup away form a pile of confetti was the final outcome that gave way for the humorous finale. As the pile of confetti is revealed, a fan that sits next to it is seen blowing at the pile, however, there is no response. As the audience is left thinking for a few moments that there's some mistake, a person jumps up from behind the set and blows on the pile of confetti. This scenes gives the ident a more humorous and youthful tone. The audio playing throughout the ident is elevator music. This was chosen due to it matching the pace of the Rube Goldberg machine and its recognisability by a large audience, making it an appropriate choice to support the Art & Culture theme. The audio is consistent throughout the ident, falling silent only at the point of the final outcome where the cup fall away from the pile of confetti.. This was done to create a moment of suspense and confusion for the audience, so when the person jumps up from behind the set to complete the confetti outcome, it is unexpected and the audience is left pleasantly surprised.

Feedback

- The aesthetic and concept is unique and effective.
- The low-fi filming of the machine/ident works well with the concept.
- Making it about the viewer/audience as if the ident was their living room is very subtle and effective at relating to the audience and your given theme.
- Maybe the ending and the 'Up Next' sequence could have been a wide shot of the whole scene to bring the ident to a close/finish.
- The audio sounds 'roomy', so maybe you could have re-created the sounds of the Rube Goldberg machine in a studio setting, which would have given you clearer and more immersive audio.
- It would be nice to see the DIY/homey aesthetic applied to a nice clean and minimal zine.
- The human touch by having a person be a part of the Rube Goldberg machine makes it more personal and playful. Also it reinforces your Art & Culture theme very well.
- Consider how this would play out in different contexts, such as social media, print etc.
- You could have played around with editing the colours/hue of the video. By increasing the saturation/brightness of the colours you could have potentially reinforced your concept or made it more visually impressive.

Evaluation

The brief asked to create an ident for a hypothetical TV Channel, using a Rube Goldberg machine. The theme given to our group was Art & Culture. The concept we constructed for our ident was a living room set design of someone who would watch Art & Culture shows. I believe that our final outcome for this brief has been successful, because not only did we create a complex and enticing Rube Goldberg machine, but we also applied our concept to all design decisions we made. The Rube Goldberg machine utilised unique materials that represented our theme, and generated very interesting sound effects. The choice of materials, set design objects, strategy in filming and background audio were all inspired by our homey and person-orientated concept, which I believe is what makes the ident feel relatable and visually appealing for the audience. Also, including humour and a human touch in the ident makes it eye-catching and memorable. To improve our final outcome, I believe we should have filmed our ident with more professional equipment and expertise. Even though the low-fi filming of the ident as it is at the moment is quite appropriate to our concept, to make the ident more TV-ready and high quality, I believe we should have sought a photographers or videographers expertise. This would have helped us to capture the Rube Goldberg machine and the idents concept at its full potential. Nonetheless, I believe that our final outcome has been successful because not only did it receive a lot of positive comments from its target audience, but it is also a massive expression of creativity and inventiveness, applied to an area of Graphic Design where such analogue techniques are not as common.

Behind The Scenes (May include offensive language)

One of the deliverables was to create some form of documentation of our brief/project. We decided to create a 'Behind the Scenes' video that shows the process and struggles of creating our Rube Goldberg machine and set design, as well as some of the fun and laughs we had throughout.

It's Nice That/Anyways Brief - Design Development

Making/Building

After our initial ideas stage, we now had a very clear understanding of our Art & Culture theme, and how we wanted to communicate it using our set design. We also knew some of the key features that we wanted to include in our Rube Goldberg machine.

These were:
Wine/Wine bottle and wine being poured as the human nudge that starts the machine, marbles used in some parts of the machine and specifically on the guitar strings to create some interesting audio, a spiral in some form created by the objects to hint at the Channel Logo, and confetti falling across the set design as the final outcome/task that is completed by the machine.

On the day of constructing and shooting our ident, we all brought in various objects that we knew would fit the Art & Culture theme of our set design. The objects were things such as: candles, rug, postcards, books, lights/lamps, statues, playing cards, CD's, guitar, masquerade mask and etc.

We then spent all day experimenting and constructing our Rube Goldberg machine within the set design we had started to put together. We first wanted to complete the Rube Goldberg machine, and then to finish/polish the set design by adding all the smaller objects into it afterwards, so that whilst we were constructing the machine they did not get in the way or distract us. We knew what the key features of our Rube Goldberg machine should be, so we spent the day connecting those key features through a variety of trial & error and testing of our mechanisms.

Some of the mechanisms we used we had taken inspiration from our research, as well as the initial workshop we had done the week before. The most noticeable of these influences is the use of liquid, within our initial workshop we included water and a pulley system within our Rube Goldberg machine, and in our final ident Rube Goldberg machine we did something similar, but instead used wine and tubbing, to also induce a pulley system.

Our Workshop:

Our Ident:

Everything we had aimed to do and all the key events/features we wanted to include in our Rube Goldberg machine worked and were successful, apart from one. One key feature we could not test or try out until we came to shoot the ident, this was because the feature included making a mess of the whole set design. This was the use of confetti. We had planned that the final outcome of our Rube Goldberg machine would be a cup being knocked away and revealing a pile of confetti, which is placed right next to a working fan. In theory we hoped that when the cup is knocked away and the confetti revealed, that the fan would blow the confetti across the whole set. Unfortunately this was not the case. The confetti was either too heavy, or the fan not strong enough, or both, but our plan did not work out. 

At this point we did not have access to any other materials that could be used as alternatives to make our idea work, so we decided to simply embrace the mistake and try and make something fun/funny out of the situation. We got Jess to hide behind the scene (the shelf), right underneath the pile of confetti, so when the cup gets knocked over and the pile of confetti disappointingly does not move she can pop out from behind the shelf and blow on the confetti to rectify the situation. We filmed a few takes of Jess doing so and we were very happy with this result. Although we had failed in making our Rube Goldberg machine complete the final task, we thought that the content that came out of that situation was even better, as it was more interesting, light-hearted and humorous. Later on during our final feedback, this part of the ident turned out to be everyone's favourite. Which just proves that sometimes even if things don't turn out they way they are meant to, simply thinking on your feet, being creative and embracing the moment/having fun can turn the problem/mistake around and make it even better/more successful.

Editing

To edit our ident I used Adobe After Effects. I choose this programme because I am quite familiar with it, and it allowed me to edit the videos we had filmed in a professional and accurate way. We had many various shots of our ident, and it was my challenge to edit those shots in a way that communicated our theme, as well as told the story that we had designed within our ident in an engaging and clear way. 

The biggest challenge I faced was making all the shots we filmed flow seamlessly. Within our Rube Goldberg machine we also had two tangents/outcomes that happened alongside the main/final outcome. These were the wine glass filling up with wine, and the marbles rolling down the guitar. It was quite difficult to edit these two events happening in a way that did not make them seem as if they were the finale, as well as not making them seem too off-pace within the video/ident. I believe I had managed to avoid these problems in the way I edited the videos. The two tangents/extra outcomes I made sure to show the extend of, but also cut away to the next shot/scene quite quickly, so it was clear to the viewer/audience that that outcome was not the final one. I also made sure to edit the video in the exact chronological order of how our Rube Goldberg machine occurred, so that all elements and all shots within the ident made sense and the cause/effect of each outcome was clear.

One of the brief requirements was to include the 'Up Next' screen with the Channel Nought logo in the last 5-10 seconds of the ident. This turned out to become another challenge. Due to the concept of our ident, each frame/shot we filmed was quite busy and had a lot of visual elements within them. Consequently, when I placed the 'Up Next' screen text/content over the last shot of our ident, the text/copy was getting lost on the screen and not legible/clear at all/ The challenge I now faced was finding a shot or an effect that could solve this problem. I did not want to sabotage our storyline by using a different shot, because then the ident would not have been chronological, and the final shot would not have made any sense to the viewer. However, I also needed to find a way to make the text/copy legible and easy to read. I decided that adding an effect to the video would be the best way to do this.

Fist I tried to take advantage of this problem, and to be a little more creative with the way I edit the last shot to aid text legibility. I choose a circular blur effect that mimicked a swirl, and therefore would hint back to the Channel Logo. When applied to the last shot, this effect solved the issue of text legibility. It seemed that I had not only solved the problems we had, but also added an extra meaning/connection between the ident and the Channel. Unfortunately, although the circular blur effect seemed to work well and in theory it was a good idea, visually it seemed a little off. We felt that such an effect was a little old/dated, and that it also seemed a little awkward.

When we showed this idea to Charlie to get some feedback, he also agreed that the swirling effect, although clever, was a bit too much and kind of ruined how impressive our ident was up until that point. What he suggested instead was to keep it simple, and to keep all the attention on the content of the ident. He suggested looking at different, more subtle blurring and fading effects.

Going back to the video with a more direct/minimal approach in mind, what we decided to do was to simply add a black coloured fade to the ending of the ident, so that the white coloured content on the 'Up Next' screen would be easier to see and read. We took onboard what Charlie said about keeping it simple and focusing on the video content of out ident, so we all agreed that the simple fade was the best option.

I went on to apply the fade, as well as to clean up and make the content feel seamless and flowing. As well as fading the video/last shot of the ident, I also faded in and out the text/'UpNext' screen so that there were no harsh cuts in content and so that the transitions between the video and the information felt easy and natural. I also added a slight fade-in at the start of the video, to tie it all together and make the ident feel cohesive start to finish.

The brief also asked that the ident contained audio. We knew we wanted the audio to relate to our theme of Art & Culture, but we also did not want it to be too distracting from the Rube Goldberg machine and the natural audio/sounds that were generated by the machine. The sounds such as wine pouring into the wine glass and the marbles running down the guitar strings created very engaging and interesting sounds, so we wanted to make sure that those were audible and clear throughout the video. For this we needed the background music/audio throughout the video to not be too overwhelming or attention-grabbing, so possibly something instrumental rather than with lyrics/words.

We looked at several different songs and instrumental music pieces, and then watched the ident start to finish with each piece playing to figure out which was the most appropriate and effective for what we wanted to achieve with the audio. We wanted our audio to also represent the Art & Culture theme, so we tried to look for music/soundtracks that would be recognisable to a large audience. We looked at classical music, waiting/elevator music, movie soundtracks and etc.

In the end we chose the instrumental elevator music. We choose this for several reasons. The first being that the music was not too distracting from the content/video within the ident. The second was that the pace of the elevator music instrumental seemed to fit quite well with the pace of our video and Rube Goldberg machine. Finally, we also choose this audio because the elevator soundtrack is very well known to a wide audience, so in a way it is part of society and culture. Out of all the soundtracks/music/instrumentals we looked at, this one is likely the most recognisable, so we thought it would be a good to support the Art & Culture theme we were portraying.

The elevator music instrumental fit in well with the pace of our ident, so I did not need to edit the soundtrack too much. The only part within the ident where I edited the audio was when the final outcome, the reveal of the pile of confetti, happened. I did this to bring attention to that moment through silence, and to enhance the humour of the moment when Jess pops up from behind and blows at the pile of confetti. By making the audio go silent, I created a moment of suspense and confusion for the viewer, where they are left thinking what has happened and what will happen next. The silence suggest that all action is over, so when Jess pops up from behind the shelf it makes the moment even more surprising and unexpected.

It's Nice That/Anyways Brief - Research & Initial Ideas

Research

For our research, we looked at various existing Rube Goldberg machines and idents. We looked at Rube Goldberg machines so that we could possibly take inspiration from the mechanisms and techniques that they used, as well as to see what type of materials are universally used and something we should think ahead of purchasing/collecting before we start making our machine. We looked at existing TV idents to get an understanding of their purpose, too see how they communicate their themes, and the structure of how the ident is filmed/edited together. We wanted to make sure that when we came to editing our ident, we had a clear understanding of how the ident should tell it's story, and at which point, for example, should the 'Up Next' and Channel Logo come up. 

Rube Goldberg Machine - Honda Commercial

This machine was very neat and clean, all its parts were planned to perfection, and there was no background distractions. This made watching the ad/machine work very relaxing and made it look even more impressive. This machine also had objects that all associated with Honda and cars. We thought this was quite a nice touch, as not only does the machine end with a purpose of advertising the car, but also the whole machine and all it's components do so. We thought this could be something we could also do within our machine, have objects and pieces that all relate to Art & Culture somehow.  

Rube Goldberg Machine - The Cake Server

This machine was a lot more DIY and chaotic than the Honda ad. This was because this machine used more daily life objects and the mechanisms within the machine were more light-hearted and funny. We liked this DIY approach more and thought this would approach would suit the Art & Culture theme better, as Art & Culture is a part of everyone's daily lives and there are many daily life objects we encounter that could symbolise and represent Art & Culture.

Rube Goldberg Machine - Music Video

This machine was created specifically for a music video, with the task at the end being spraying the musicians with paint. What I liked about this machine was that a lot of it's mechanisms and components were created with the audio in mind, and so the machine feels to fit the soundtrack. I thought this was quite a nice idea and something we could consider when choosing the audio for our ident, that the music/audio fit into the scene or pace of the machine, so that the whole process is elevated and the events that happen within the machine are highlighted by the audio. 

Rube Goldberg Machine - Pass The Salt

This machine also had the DIY style, and used a lot of components that related to its theme. The ending goal was to 'pass the salt' which gave the whole machine a food theme, and so a lot of the mechanisms within this machine utilised food items and utensils. I thought this was very effective, because much like in the Honda Rube Goldberg machine, the mechanisms and machine components also communicate the theme, not just the ending result does. This was something I thought we should consider and include within our machine, and possibly use objects that are associated with Art & Culture as part of our machine .

Ident - Channel 4

In these channel idents, the giants character is made up of shaped that included in the Channel 4 logo. I thought this was a very clever and interesting way to communicate the channel from the very start of the ident, without having to wait until the end to reveal which channel it is showing. Within our ident we could also reference the shape of the Channel logo, possibly within our rube Goldberg mechanisms in a more subtle way, or even more obviously by having the machine reveal or draw the channel logo. 

Ident - Channel 4 Simpsons

In this ident, both the channel and the programme/theme are communicated together. The shapes are again taken from the Channel 4 logo, but the iconic colours are taken from The Simpsons. I think this is a clever way to marry the two key bits of information, the Channel and the programme. I think it is also more visually interesting to look at, as the communication of both bits of information is quite subtle, so as a viewer you feel a small sense of accomplishment for being able to decipher the meaning of the ident before the text and logo come up. The clean aesthetic of this ident is also very pleasing to look at, so it's something that we could consider also. Do we make it very clean and controlled so it's clear and clean, or do we go for the more DIY approach where it's more chaotic and fun. 

Ident - MTV

In this ident, the meaning and purpose of it is more subtle and less clear. However, visually the ident is very engaging and makes you want to keep on watching. The abstract and creative characters within the ident give a lot to look at, and the viewer will notice something different each time they see the ident. This is something we quite liked the idea of, that the audience has something different and new to spot each time they see the ident. We could also make our ident quite abstract and creative. 

Ident - ITV Creates

In these idents, ITV asked different artists to create their logo in their artistic point of view. This gave the viewers of the TV Channel something different to look forward to each week, and a new perspective in which to see the channel from each time. I thought this was very effective and interesting, as it makes the viewer want to see more and each time they watch the ident, they expect to see something different or notice a new detail within the artworks. This I thought was something we could do as well, not all idents have to be crisp and clean, they could be quite chaotic and exciting and give the viewer a lot to look at.

Initial Ideas

We began to discuss or Art & Culture theme, and how we could communicate it through the perspective of a Rube Goldberg machine. From our research we were inspired to consider how the machine components, as well as the objects around the machine could aid in communicating the theme. We started discussing various materials, colours, shapes, references and etc. 

My idea notes:

- Mechanisms release different paints/materials. Forms swirl in the end. 

- Each material paints/draws it's own swirl.

- Close up shot of the mechanism, then zoom out to reveal a swirl made from the mechanism components/objects. The mechanism itself could be a swirl, or the ending result could be a swirl.

- Lots of materials thrown onto a canvas. Eg. paint, powder, glitter. Then a fan turns on to blow away the materials and reveal a swirl where the materials have stuck to glue. 

- The machine/ident is very busy and chaotic, then slows down at the end to reveal the text and logo.

- Everything is one colour/shot in one take. Seamless and flowing would be aesthetically pleasing. 

- The 'behind the scenes' video could be chronological, showing our progress each day. 

- A mini zine/mag of the process or and instructions manual of how to re-create our ident. 

After various discussions and bouncing around ideas, we all settled on the idea of creating a 'set' within which our Rube Goldberg machine would take place. The 'set' would be a room in a home of a person who would be watching Art & Culture shows. We thought that this would be a nice way to bring all our ideas together, as well as implement what we had learnt from research. In our research we found what was very effective was using objects that associated with the theme, so by creating a set design, all the objects that are part of the Rube Goldberg machine, and all the objects surrounding it will communicate the Art & Culture theme as they are given a context of why they would be there. By creating a 'home' setting/context we are allowing ourselves to be quite creative and include almost anything we wanted as decorative elements. We also learnt in our research that for the ident to be engaging, one technique to use is to give the audience a lot of information and a lot to look at, as well as something to look forward to. By making our ident quite busy with lots of objects and lots of references, we will be giving the audience the opportunity to notice more details each time they look at the ident. Which will not only make it engaging for the viewer and make them carry on watching, but also make them likely to look forward to watching the ident again so that they could notice even more stuff. 

To started discussing our 'set design' and what objects specifically could be included, how the Rube Goldberg machine will fit into it, and what overall atmosphere/aesthetic we are trying to create. 

After we all had a clear idea of what we wanted to do with this ident and how we wanted the Rube Goldberg machine to work, we needed to figure out  a location where we could create our machine. We knew we wanted a 'home' setting, so Meg from our group suggested we use her living room to build our set design and machine. On the first day we went to her house, we all also brought along with us some objects and materials that we could use. I brought along a variety of different art supplies that could potentially be used to help us build our Rube Goldberg machine, and the other girls brought similar materials as well as some stuff that we could use as part of our set design.

When we went to Meg's house, we first cleared a space and then collected some of the furniture from around her house to create the foundations for our set design and Rube Goldberg machine. We wanted to create some layers and have some different heights so that it was easier to create our Rube Goldberg machine, so we used both a table and a small bookcase.

We then began to start collecting some objects we thought would suit our Art & Culture theme and could become part of our set design. We also began playing around with materials and creating mechanisms that could be used within our Rube Goldberg machine. 

We decided to move the set design to another wall inside the living room, to give ourselves more room to work and also a larger area within which our rube Goldberg machine would sit in.

We had to submit a summary of our work in progress/development/rationale half-way through our project. So after our initial idea stage, we created a quick sum-up of what we were doing.

It's Nice That/Anyways Brief - Brief & Workshop

Brief

Create an ident (short film) for a TV Channel using a Rube Goldberg machine.

Ident - a short sequence shown between programmes to identify a channel.

Examples - BBC 1 & 2, ITV, Channel 4, MTV, C4.

Hypothetical Channel to work with:

Channel Nought/0

They want a suite of idents, one for each content category:

Food, Kids, Art/Culture and Sports

Deliverables:

1 x Film

1 x Performance of your machine (if possible)

1 x Documentation (Behind the Scenes, Zine, Poster etc.)

Length: Min 30sec Max 120sec.

Must include sound.

Must include official branding.

16 x 9 Landscape format.

You can include a voiceover 'Up next...'

Phases: Ideation, Making, Testing, Recording, Performing

Tuesday 19th - Send one page showing the work in progress/development/rationale.

Friday 22nd - Final Crit. Perform Rube Goldberg (if possible) and play videos.

Group:

Myself (Migle Saveikyte)

Jessica Schofield

Meg Wilson

Our Theme:

Art & Culture

Channel Nought Branding Guidelines:

Workshop

Before we were introduced to the brief, we completed a one-day workshop with Charlie Sheppard, to introduce us to what a Rube Goldberg machine was and how it works. The workshop we did and some of the mechanisms we created inspired some of our ideas when we came to do the brief. So unknowingly to us at the time, the workshop was in a way part of the  initial ideas stage. 

The Brief:

Make a Rube Goldberg Machine, which is - creating an invention that completes a very simple task in a very complicated manner. 

Your task: Pop a Balloon. 

You will be judged on:

Inventiveness

Individuality

Resourcefulness

Task Completion

Style

Process:

Split into Groups.

Choose your area of the room.

Review your materials - What can you make?.

Key Phase: Planning - Sketch ideas.

Making/building space.

Testing/developing/documenting stage.

Performance.

Rules:

You can use any apparatus in the studio... What can you acquire/borrow to make this even better?

It can be as big or small as you want - but you want it to be impressive. 

The final outcome must be to pop your balloon. 

You can use a human nudge to get your machine started.

Planning/Sketching:

The approach we decided to take was to get going and start experimenting with the different materials we had, and to see what we could come up with. We added to our plan/sketch as we went along, and once we had a general idea of how the next step of the machine should happen, we'd spend a lot of time figuring it out and finding the right materials to execute what we had planned. 

Construction/ Building:

Final Outcome:

The workshop really helped us as it gave us an initial idea of how the mechanisms within the machine work, and which combination of objects are better at completing different tasks. We also learnt that utilising surfaces, gravity, elevated objects and anything within out surroundings was very useful, and that everything around us could be used to our advantage to create the Rube Goldberg machine. The workshop also gave us more confidence, as out machine was the only one that successfully completed the task of popping the balloon, and so we were not worried but quite excited when we were set the brief to create another machine for an ident.