IDENT

What is the purpose of Idents (images, annotations, connotations);

Idents are a visual aid to help create a face for a production business. An Ident should reflect what a business's target audience is. For example, Disney's main target audience is Children, where as Syncopy's main audience is Adults.

The Walt Disney ident is colourful and friendly. It has a castle centre framed that has been brightly coloured with a lightly tinted-salmon-like pink and blue. The background also contains the colour blue with the essence of magic. The typography within its self is shiny, informal (which can be argued to be immature). The point of the picture is to create a dream-like place, which with the combination of bright colours and sudden shades of blacks, creates.

On the other side of the spectrum is an Ident like Syncopy. Syncopy was founded by Nolan, therefore reflects the same visual tone as his films (especially The Dark Knight Trilogy (2005-2012) and Inception (2010)). In comparison to Disney's overwhelming amount of colours, Syncopy is black giving it that empty-mysterious feel that can be found in films like The Dark Knight and Inception. The audience's attention is dragged straight to the typography style the title has (where as Disney's is its signature Castle). If you look at the Ident in comparison to the Title logos of The Dark Knight Rises (2012) but especially Inception you'll notice a very theme throughout.

The remaining theme is the gloomy, gritty feel that Nolan has in his more recent films. Thats what the ident is trying to convey, the connotations of dark and gritty so when you see the Syncopy logo, you subconsciously think of Nolan, and make expectations.

This is the same with Disney, they want their viewers to see their Ident and know what sort of feeling is coming. Its a face, a representation of what the film is, and what the film is going to be. For example, this Sky Movies channel is dedicated to only Disney movies. But with an instant glance at the picture, you can see what Disney is trying to achieve, and its the same as their Film ident, magic. Disney films have been described as always being child friendly, and as said before they are targeting towards children, and children love magic! So having something as significant such as magic, can evolve the entire theme and can captivate the minds of children by creating that wow-factor by a single glance.

Game Shows on TV

Culture of Game shows

In this blog, I will be comparing to similar game shows from two very different cultures. The first chosen game show was Ninja Warrior/Sasuke (1997 - Present). To contrast this, I have chosen old american game show, Gladiators (1992-2000). Both shows began during the 1990s meaning they have similar technical aspects (such as 4:3 and 360p SD instead of HD). Other then the technical aspects, and the theme, there isn't much else they have in common.

First of all, what is culture?
Culture is the type of social interaction between a specific type of people. For example, a country village in Japanese will be wildly different to a country village in Britain. A variety of things can influence a culture of people. Such as origins, environment (such as resource types/limits), wealth, beliefs (such as religion, mythical), etc.

What are they about?
Ninja Warrior (1997-Present) is a Japanese game show where members of Public train and compete to beat an almost impossible obstacle course. Similarly, Gladiators is an american show in which public contestants are put up against a challenge. But, instead of an obstacle course its a series of trails that put them against body builders in challenges.

How are they culturally different?
Ninja Warrior is very Japanese produced in the way its got vibrant colours in stereotypical Japanese fashion.

Behind the people lies a sign, with the culturally famous Red & White sun effect (from the description of "From the land of the rising sun" relating to Japan being from the East and America being West, i.e. "Wild West".

The white and red relates to the countries flag (see picture to the right).

Gladiators was an "americanised" in the way it had big sets, large challenges and its very over the top. Where as Ninja Warrior was considered to be a serious show with comedic aspects, Gladiators was seen as purely made for comedic purposes (like Total Wipeout (2008-2012) here in the U.K.).
The show similarly has themes from its flag. The two teams are split into the patriotic of Red, White and Blue (see picture to the right).

As said before, all the props are big, the logo (seen in the background) is every over the top, flashing lights,etc.

American Flag (Red, White and Blue).

Context definition
Context is all about understanding the relevant information in front of you. This can be anything from events, an idea (i.e. story), documentation, etc.

Definition of era and audience.

Factual Programming

What is Factual Programming? 

Factual Programming is a type of genre. Its also known as Documentaries and is any production source that is considered Factual. This can span from Nature Documentaries to News Reports.