Idents
An ident (short for identifier) is a short clip that is played before a TV programme or movie to remind you that it’s their channel you’re watching or production company associated with it. Usually these clips include something specific to the company, like a logo. In all these Channel 4 idents, their deconstructed ‘4’ logo is a recurring ‘character’ put in different situations, which makes the viewer immediately associate what they’re watching with Channel 4, while keeping them engaged each time due to the new scenes.
From noticing just how often we actually come across these indents when watching a TV show, streamed series, or movie, we have realised the importance of a production being able to be easily recognisable. To tie this into our news show, we will be designing and animating a full introductory sequence of around 15 seconds to place before the start of the show as well as when it returns after our planned commercial break.
How we Consume News
Here I compiled images relating to Donald Trump and the riot at the US Capitol Building on 6th January 2021 that my group and I gathered from the internet. These include screen captures of news sites, reports, live shows of the event, social media and other sources. With this slideshow, we presented to the class, explaining how people interpret what they see on the media, how events are portrayed and the reality of the information we consume from certain sources. Our main takeaway from this is just how important it is to understand who you’re getting information from. We must get into the habit of questioning what we see and looking further into the sources’ views, making a judgement for ourselves about bias and what we should be believing.
After this exercise, we have been paying more attention to what each of us consume in the ways of news, regularly discussing updates or possibly strange insights. One example we have worked into our project is a snippet of a story about the interception of meat being brought through EU borders, specifically mentioning sandwiches, that was seen by a few members, including myself. As we are working towards a satire, fantasy rendition of real world events, we have found this as a perfect opportunity to bring a small yet interesting story into our show. (Click here to see my animation of the situation)