Target Market

Our target market for our film is older children around the age of 7-14. This is because it has cartoon aspects to it so may not appeal to an older audience but will also contain subtitles which a very young audience may have trouble reading.

It is also aimed at anyone interested in the chinese culture as it is an old folk tale about the chinese zodiac which is part of their culture.

The story is most appealing to this age group because it is about animals that have the ability to talk and understand other animals. It is also basic enough for this age group to understand whereas adults may find it all a little bit childish.

We are using toon shading which will give this 2D cartoon look which is aimed more at children as not many adults watch cartoons. The story uses quite basic language which adults may find patronising. The book which the story is based on was also aimed at this age group so it seems fitting that the animation is aimed at them too.

I have been researching some companies that may be interested in our final film and Blue Zoo was the production company that stuck out the most. They create a lot of television shows for children including Olive the ostrich and Tree Fu Tom (which is to air this year). They do ads as well and have worked with the BBC and Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network. Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network are the sort of channel that our film could be broadcast on because they have the audience that our film is aimed at. Blue Zoo would be a good company to invite to the degree show as they may be interested in our film. I have sent there company email address an invitation to the degree show and to ask if anyone else I could speak to that would be interested in coming to Ravensbourne 2012.

Broadcasting quality controls

Today we had a lecture about quality controls when broadcasting. This was to help us understand what quality control tests we need our film to pass so that we can show it in our degree show.

This is what I learnt:

 - At the back of our eye, we have rods and cones. Rods can only see black and white and three cones in our eye can see colour - Red, blue and green.

 - If we add red, blue and green together, we get white light. When we mix red and green we get yellow, green and blue make cyan and red and blue make magenta.

 - At the beginning of each programme we have bars and tone, a clock and then the programme. The programme will internationally always start at the timecode 10:00:00:00, this is so the timecode can be less for the bars and tone and the clock. Time can never go backwards therefore the timecode cannot be negative.

 - the colour bars at the beginning are to show the different colours of light that RGB can produce.
Here are the colour bars:

The colours are at different brightnesses which are measured. Blue is at 11% brightness, red is at 30% brightness and green is at 59% brightness. This is easier to see if you change the the bars to black and white.

 - The brightness of colours has to be measured before it can be broadcast because in animation, we can produce artificial colours which can be too bright for broadcast. This is measured by using a vectorscope.  If the colours are too bright they will go beyond the boundary and this is classed as a fail so has to be adjusted before it can be broadcast.

 - The clock at the beginning before the programme starts must have the name of the item, name of the producers and have the duration. Some request that the description of the first and last shot must also be on there. Below is an example of the clock.

 - 20Hz is the lowest sound and 20,000Hz is the highest. Sound must be tested so that it is not too loud for broadcast. The BBC designed a meter called a Peak Programme meter which was an analog sound measurer. A PPM measures from 1 to 7 with PPM4 being at 0 db. Each number on the meter equals to 4db. Normal range is between PPM4 and PPM6. There is also a digital version that reads decibels. -18db is normal level and anything between -18 and -9 is fine for broadcasting. 

 - It must be tested for flashes using a Flash Panel Analyser. This tests wether the programme has too many flashes for it to be classed as suitable for broadcast. Res flashes are worse than white and is it goes above the line on the scale for any reason, then it fails.

 - When the resolution is 1080i that means it is interlaced and has 1080 horizontal lines. The programme will be at 25 frames per second. interlaced means that only half the fields or horizontal lines are shown at a time so all the odd ones will be shown and then all the even lines. This merges the first and second frames together to play. 

 - the BBC require all there programming to be in HD with 1920x1080 resolution and on HDCam SR tapes rather than digital.

Setting up accounts.

For professional skills, I have been able to set up a group gmail account. I have then been able to set up a google calendar and shared to all of our ravensbourne gmail accounts. This has meant that everyone has a copy of the calendar. We can all update our own calendars but also add anything to the group calendar and everyone can see the changes.

Here is the group calendar that I set up:

I added some preliminary dates and tasks that we have all agreed on. This is the calendar that everyone has access to and can add any more dates by logging into the group account.

This is my own calendar:

Everything in blue are the dates that have been shared by the group account so every other colour is my own personal calendar and my own tasks that I have made. It is a good way to organise myself as well as the group so I know what I am supposed to be doing and keeping myself organised.

Individual Contract

I have written an individual contract so that I know what I am supposed to be doing on what week. I will try my best to stick to it but I know that problems may occur that need to be seen to as a matter of urgency.

This is my schedule up until the hand in date:

Week	Dates	Planned progress
1	02/01/12	Rat modelling is already completed, rig the rat, bind skin and paint weights. Continue to model the cat.
2	09/01/12	Continue with rigging the rat, paint weights and adjust component editor. Continue modelling the cat.
3	16/01/12	Give finished rat rig to Lily, Give finished cat model to James to rig. Start modelling emperor.
4	23/01/12	Continue to model the emperor. Decide on the best method for toon shading – render layers or ramp shaders.
5	30/01/12	Rig the emperor
6	06/02/12	Paint weights, adjust component editor and give to Lily to add nCloth
7	13/02/12	Adjust rigs if problems arise. Help texture the animals – block colours or toon shading. Decide as a group who is animating and working on each shot. Add water to the environment and adjust the settings to make it look like a realistic river.
8	20/02/12	Animate water and test render to get the desired effect.
9	27/02/12	FORMATIVE
10	05/03/12	Set up cameras and reference to animatic. Time out the scenes to work with animation.
11	Holiday	Animate any scenes that I am assigned to. First block out the animation and clean up once action is timed correctly. Check scenes with water and make sure the wakes work with the animal animation.
12	09/04/12	Help clean up animation and use play blasts to test them.
13	16/04/12	Set up render layers or adjust render settings so they are ready to send to the render farm or render on our own computers. Check file names are labelled clearly and file types are all correct.
14	23/04/12	Help render or send to render farm. Make final adjustments to scenes if issues occur and set them up for re-rendering.
15	30/04/12	Test the renders to make sure the rendering was completed correctly. Re-render any more scenes that need adjusting.
16	07/05/12	Composite the renders so we are left with clips of each camera angle and scene.
17	14/05/12	Help edit these and add in any sound that has been made. Add sound effects and adjust timings of each clip using the animatic for reference.
18	21/05/12	Make any final adjustments and render out final clip. Make sure it meets broadcast requirements for degree show.
19	May 25th	Hand in

This will keep me on time so that, as a group we will not fall behind.

My roles may change throughout this project so at the omen I am only modelling, rigging and looking after the water but I may have to texture at some stage and I will also need to animate. I think everyone's roles will change though the group and so far, most of us have done small parts of everything. I will write everything that I have done in m blog so that I can see my progress.

Professional Skills

We have been given a new brief to help us and the degree show. As far as I understand it, we have to make a contract for each of us as well as the group and stick to this. We than have to promote and market our films by way of posters and merchandise and then send off to industry to make contacts and invite them to our degree show.

We need to provide evidence of organisation by way of calendar and documents showing meetings and other events. We need to show our correspondence to people within the industry to show that we have actively helped provide attendance from industry at the degree show.

Last term, me and some of my group made merchandise for our final film that we sold. We still have plenty of stock left so for this project, not only will we make posters but we can also send some companies some of our bottle openers and key rings to get them interested. This would be a good way to help market our film and generate interest in our degree show.

Our group has planned to make a dropbox account so that we can all share our files and is also a way of backing them up in case one of our computers die.

I have already made a gmail account for our film which is catandratfilm@gmail.com. This is so we can create calendars and documents for our group and share them with our uni email accounts. We all have the password for this account so any of us can update it at any point.