Research and Planning: E4 and the brief

Research and Planning: E4 and the brief

E4 is a UK television channel. It was launched as a companion to channel 4 on the 18th of January 2001. E4 has many well known and very popular shows, they seem to focus more on the comedy genre as it appeals more tot their target audience. E4's target audience is teens to mid 30's adults as their programmes cater to that demographic(more on this term further on) . E4 regularly shows programmes such as the classic american sitcom Friends. The comedy spin off The Cleveland Show. The comedy show the Inbetweeners and The Ricky Gervais show, this kind of alternative, close to the bone comedy would not really appeal to the older or younger audiences. Its not all comedy though however, its has its share of dramas as well such as Misfits and skins.  Demographic is a term that the media use to divide up audiences using age, gender, race and other different categories. Every media product out there specializes in different demographics. According to the chart below E4 specializes in the age range from 18 to 24. this is because of their choice of shows and also their informal approach to their audience. The sex demographic is almost half and half. also their audience are mostly childless so this also allows them to show more edgier comedy shows.

E Stings

An E sting is a short animated short clip that E4 use to advertise their TV channel. They can be any type of animation. they are usually funny and are designed to give the audience a few seconds of fun before the programme they  are going to watch starts. I am going to analyse three E Stings.

The first E Sting I am analysing is this one entitled NosE4atu. It is hand drawn animation and it is referencing to the film Nosferatu. It is rather comedic as nosferatu is known as one of the first horror movies and are using this to make it funnier as it shows nosforatu, a usually scary figure being mocked and beaten by the E4 logo.


The second 'E-Sting' I watched and analyzed was the one entitled 'Breakfast Surprise'. I liked this E sting more than the previous one, I thought it was funnier because of the type of animation used. although they both are cartoons this one is more roughly animated which I think adds to the comedic affect. also at the minute zombies seem to be the fashion in film and television at the minute. so this would appeal to a larger audience than the 'Nose4atu' E sting.


The third and final 'E-sting' I watched was definitely my favourite. The E sting is called 'Crabby and the salty sea dog'. I really like this E ting mainly because of how odd it is. the characters looked warped and strange and I really love the style of the animation its all very stiff and rather lethargic. I also really like the colour scheme. the colours are quite bland and weak which I think adds to the quirkiness.

Preperation

In preparation for my E sting I looked into the different forms of animation and tested them out for myself. find below the video of my first attempt of a Thaumotrope, i say first attempt because i ended up holding it upside down! I wasn't quite sure what the concept was however after making it and viewing it i could see why I thought I had to hold it upside down!

Also for my prep work I attempted some stop motion animation work (seeing as this was the type of animation we would be using according to the brief). me and my collegue just made a simple sketch of a giant Lego spider scaring a man off of his wheelchair. This is very ameteur however i didnt think it was too bad for our first attempt.


We did another stop motion test where we were given the task of filming some sort of race/ chase sequence. in my groups video we decided to have the protagonist throw down some debree that the other character slips over on. After seeing this the protagonist gets in the box that he is carrying and 'drives' away. however once he reaches the corner he crashes and spins out of control. finishing with the quip "drink and drive, drink and die"