TV Advertisement 1 Synopsis

This advertisement starts with an establishing shot taken from the inside of a telescope. This pans across the sky where you can see space, full of stars and quickly cuts to a medium close up of Wren in his window, staring though his telescope (somewhat of a reaction shot). Once again, this cuts back to the sky, however this time moving a different way. It stops moving and a glint is seen in the sky, a gear is seen falling from the sky and a reaction shot of Wren is used to show that he has seen the gear and that it is a shock to him (this helps me progress the scene to where he is picking up the gear and this should make the viewer aware that the hand picking it up belongs to him). A medium shot of the gear falling from the sky onto a patch of grass is then shown, this informs the viewer that the gear has landed and keeps the continuity of the advertisement overall. A high angle medium long shot is used (looking slightly down on the gear) and a rift is seen opening on the right hand side of the screen, this, engulfs the entire screen in black and white as if tearing, starting off a small black and white area before enveloping the colour from the world completely.

A close up of the gear (against a black and white background to keep continuity of the advertisement) is then shown. During this shot, a hand (still in colour) is seen reaching down and picking up the gear. To keep with conventions of video game advertisements, the advertisement then moves to titles and gameplay. Titles in video game advertisements are placed to create excitement in the viewer and make them want to play, these are usually mysterious for example 'An adventure like never before', 'one hero' and 'a spectacular journey of epic proportions' ect. I chose (as seen by my storyboard below) 'A paralysed world...', 'A leaked dimension....', 'A gear with the ability to change the world...' and '...and one person to save it!' Each of these titles is followed by as small amount of gameplay (another convention I analysed in existing products) except the last title which is followed by a short animation of Wren becoming engulfed in the blue light surrounding the gear, before fading out to a black screen containing the games logo and iconography regarding what platform the game is playable on, a website address and the logo for my games company 'Tavern Studios' (once again, one of the essential conventions for a video game advertisement) after this, I plan to have 'Coming Summer 2012', giving viewers a release date is another convention and this becomes more specific, nearer to the release date.

I think overall, with both the storyboard and the written synopsis of my first TV advertisement, I have done well do adhere to vital conventions within the video game industry for when it comes to TV spots. This advertisement would need to be between 30 and 50 seconds in length to completely follow conventions of this type.

Storyboard TV Advert 1

Looking carefully at my common conventions research, I have chosen to storyboard for my first game TV advertisment/trailer. (Click to expand)

During this storyboard, I have made reference to a variety of shot types that will be used during the advertisement. I am hoping for this advertisement to be between 40 and 60 seconds long, fitting with the common conventions I have observed in existing TV trailers/advertisements for video games. 

Next I will be taking a look into some of the programs available on the market for animation, this should help me choose the program I will be creating this advertisement in. 

Mastering Basic Shot Types

I chose to make a video explaining the basic shot types used within the film industry. I encountered a few problems whilst doing this, such as the camera not focussing in certain shots and the tripod being hard to place where we were filming (long grass). However, despite this, I feel it conducts a fair portrayal of some of the shots used and will be useful to refer back to in the future.

I used imovie to edit this, placing some information on the different shot types into this.

Logo's and Fonts within the Gaming Industry

Logos are a very important part of branding and creating a product, this is no different within the gaming industry. Logos allow players to recognise a game or the company creating a game which will help when it comes to advertising and packaging a product.

Below I have selected 6 logos created to advertise games, some of these are games I have written about on my blog before. All these logos use iconography, viewers will recognise these, such as the Minecraft logo being made out of blocks from the game, the Donkey Kong logo having the stars in the middle of the 'O's and the Terraria logo having a tree from the game. 

All of these logos bare some relevance to the game itself and most gamers would recognise these. Most only use one or two colours, with the exception of Mario which uses four and all are very simple.

Below are three game developer logos, all of these are indie developers (like I will be when creating my game) As you can see from all of them, they are very simple and therefore easy to recognise. When designing both the logo for Gear Rift and the logo for my 'games company' I will need to take into account these real life examples to appeal to the industry I am working in and also to appeal to my target audience

Software Research

I will be discussing a variety of programs on the market for each stage of my production.

The stages of my production I will be looking at are

·         Spriting

·         Drawing and Editing

·         Animating

·         Game Making

·         Editing (Post Production)

I will be talking about each of these stages and explaining what programs are available on the market for this stage, talking about some features of these programs, before finally choosing which program I want to use.

My first production stage would be spriting, creating sprites for the ‘gameplay’ part of my TV advertisements. Although my final output would not be an actual game, but more the promotional package, creating these sprites in the best way possible is very relevant to my production.

After researching, I have found two potential software packages for this stage. The first one being a program by the name of Cosmigo, this program is used by professionals such as EA, UBISOFT, Leap Frog and WayForward and features aspects such as the onion skin for animating and grids for more specific pixeling  and tools for creating fonts. This program costs £50 but has a 30 day free trial for experimenting and trying out this software.

The second spriting program I have found is Graphics Gale, this program is free with limited features, this program, very similar to Cosmigo, has similar features such as onion skin for animation, grids for precise pixel work and many other different and useful tools. Even with limited features, this program is very easy to use and can produce professional outcomes with no cost at all.

In terms of drawing, I have identified three possible programs I could use for this.

Easy Paint tool SAI is a relatively new Japanese program, designed to be an easy way to draw professional looking drawings without a complex interface. A 30 day trial is available on it’s website, including an English language patch for overseas users. After trying out this program for a few weeks, I found it is a very effective way to work. Allowing me to produce pieces like (show artwork) and (show artwork). I really like this program and think it will definitely be one I will be using in my production.

The second drawing program I researched was one by the name of Gimp. This freeware program has many similarities to photoshop, can be used to edit photographs and also to illustrate and draw freehand. This program, being free is very useful for production, however, after using it to draw for a little bit, I don’t think the interface is simple enough to draw effectively, and it lacks the smoothing and marker tools that SAI has.

Finally, Paint.NET is the third one I researched. This program is again free, and more designed for drawing than Gimp. The interface is a lot more complex than that of paint tool SAI, but this gives you many tools to experiment with, one of the plus sides to the software. I do like this program but believe it would take quite a long time to figure out how to get a professional feel to things drawn in it; therefore it would probably be best to work using SAI due to it’s professional finish and easy interface.

When it comes to animating software, I identified 5 programs that I could use.

The first program was a freeware program by the name of Synfig studio, this program is very good for animating lip synchs during animations. The program takes quite a while to get used to at first, so would require me to watch quite a few tutorials to begin with. Unfortunately this program isn’t used very often in a professional context.

Flash, the second piece of software I found, is increasingly being used outside of colleges and universities and is being used in a much more professional context. My Little Pony, friendship is magic is a very good example of this, a professionally produced TV show being produced in Flash. After playing around with this program for a little bit, I really liked the interface and how easy to user and beginner friendly it was, the only downsides to flash is the export quality in some instances, but this was the only downside I found.

Pencil, a freeware program similar to flash but designed for Macs was another one I tried out, although this was a very simple and hassle free program to work with, the only downside to this program I have found is that it is not great for colouring your animations, as the name suggests, much better for just sketching and getting a feel of the movement in frames.

Toon Boom studio is a newer animation software that has only surfaced in the last few years, it is more complex than flash, usage wise, but it is now becoming widely used by aspiring animators worldwide, some productions have already been made, using this program. It does look like a very nice program to work with, however the interface is somewhat more complex than I am looking for as a beginner.