Dave is a television channel available in the UK and Ireland
and features many popular shows. They present a number of comedy shows and
informative documentaries. Their main output was comedy shows from the BBC, but
now present popular-factual shows and magazine shows. They have been around for
a long time and first had the name UK Gold Classics and later UK Gold 2. They
were given a new identity and brand name in September 2007. The reason the
channel is called Dave is because UKTV said “everyone knows a bloke called Dave”,
which could be seen as usual British nature.
This ident perfectly describes the atmosphere of this
channel and tells you a lot about what kind of shows you will be watching if
you continue on this channel. The ident begins with some trombone music and on
screen you can see woman in a blue costume walk towards a cannon, as a man
welcomes her into it. The next shot you see is the woman laying comfortably in
the cannon, and the whole shot is made to look like this is a magicians trick
and that this whole thing will be marvellous. After this you see a group of
people holding a target landing zone, which is also padded for a soft landing. They
are encouraging her to do it, and are cheering. You then see her face with a
look of sheer determination as you see sparks and smoke coming out of the cannon,
and if you look at the back of the cannon you can see the fuse has been
ignited. There is then a shot of the fuse burning out and almost instantly you
see a shot of the cannon exploding and you see a woman flying through the air.
I think it is supposed to look like bad green screen effects, as it looks very
cheesy. You then see the group of people holding the padded target moving
around to catch her, but they then realise that she has gone way past the
target, as you see her smoke trail in the sky going much further than
anticipated. This is a rather humourous ident and shows the viewer how they add
humour into almost everything. The audio is also very useful with this ident,
and also adds to the humour of the ident. After around 5 seconds, a voice comes
in and makes a joke about Ray Mears, a survivalist, while introducing the next
program that will be playing. He falters his line on purpose, as it adds to the
humour and atmosphere of the video. The man’s voice is unlike a lot of cliché voice-overs,
and instead of a deep American accent the voice is of someone who sounds very
normal and approachable, which makes the viewer more interested in the channel.
He then finishes off his next line and leaves the music playing. While the
flying woman misses her target, you can hear the screech of the firework fly
off into the distance. Overall I think this ident did very well in terms of
what reaction it expected, and I think it defines the channel very well.
This ident is very quick and is used as a very quick and
snappy video in between advertisements or programs. It helps the channel stay
fresh in the viewers mind and has been made quite well. This video is made up
of three different quick idents that Dave could put in each advert at different
times, which is why there are different colours. For such a small area and video, there sure
is a lot going on. As the ident begins, you see the leaves start to go up at
the same time to the top of the shield and flourish, which is a nice sleek
implementation to the ident. When the leaves reach the end point, the video
ends. While this is happening, the elephant is moving one leg very slowly in
front of itself, which looks like it is moving more when looking at the whole
ident instead of focusing on just the elephant. The elephant is the mascot of
Dave, which is the reason for its place in the video. There is also a slight sheen
on the shield and wipes over it to suggest the light source is moving from left
to right. This is another nice addition to the sting and works well with the overall
movement of the ident. This sheen can also be seen on the helmet at the top of
the shield. You can also see the two ships on either side of the shield are in
combat with each other, as the ship on the right shoots a cannon first, and the
one on the left shoots a split-second later. The three identical idents have
one difference; the colour of the background changes. First it is blue, then
brown, then green, which adds to the variety of the same sting. The pattern
remains the same although I noticed it changes position from blue to brown. As
for the audio of the ident, there was none, as it would ruin the ident. As it
is only two seconds long there would be no music or sound that would be
suitable for this. This entire 2 second sting has been made very well and looks
very professional. There are shadows and 3D objects, which are all part of
motion design.
This is a usual ident and is 22 seconds long, which means it
is long enough for the viewer to acknowledge and be interested in. The first
thing you see is that the ident takes place in a shopping store, probably an
electronics store. The camera moves very slowly and instantly you see a woman
walking past, which makes the viewer want to follow her. You then realise that
the camera is not featuring her, and is taking more of an interest in the clock
section. You can see the clock section in the first shot, but the camera starts
to move into it more as the ident goes on. As the camera goes by the clock
aisle, you see an assortment of clocks, which are all of different sizes and shapes,
some big and round, some small and square. On top of the clocks you see banners
with words like ‘catch the sunrise’, ‘beat the snooze’ and ‘tick tock'. These
are written all in lower caps, to appear very laid back and informal. You could
say that you find it confusing up until 9 seconds in, which is when the camera
keeps moving in the aisle to reveal a cockerel, a male chicken, on the shelf,
in the same line as the clocks.
- Fun fact: Chickens are not completely flightless, and can fly just enough to get over a fence or into a small tree.
You then understand the ident, as most people know that
cockerel’s crow very early in the morning, which can also serve as an alarm
clock for those who live on a farm with chickens. The cockerel remains in its
place and does not do anything apart from spread its wings a little. I find it
funny how the words behind the chicken read out ‘good morning’ when cockerels
have a reputation for being very loud and shrill in the morning, which makes
this ironic. At 16 seconds into the video the chicken begins to crow,
demonstrating its waking call. It does not hold back and is very loud.
Underneath all the clocks are prices and information about each specific clock,
whereas underneath the clock the only thing there is the Dave logo. The chicken
makes this stand out, as it is the biggest thing in the area. The audio in this
ident matches the ident perfectly, and works very well. At first you hear some
slight music that reminds me of what you would hear in an elevator, which is
then faded down so you can hear the voiceover telling you what programs are coming
to the channel and what is coming next. As the voice is about to finish the
signature Dave music fades in, which is just before the cockerel begins to
crow. The music and the crow end at the same time, which is just before the
end of the ident. This ident is amusing and witty, which makes people more entertained,
which in turn gets them laughing and talking about it, which in turn makes Dave
more popular.
The common theme of these idents is humour, and this is
quite clear in the idents I have researched. The second ident was just a small
sting but if I had picked an ident it too would have been an amusing one. I
like the comedy in these idents, such as the joke in the voice-over in the
first ident or the chicken as a soothing alarm clock. They use real footage
most of the time, but because it was only a 2 second clip the sting was motion
design. They also like to use animals, as many people will look at the screen
if there is an animal on it. The sting had the walking elephant on it, and the third
ident had the alarm clock chicken. I like the use of practical things in
idents, as it gives it more of a personality and the feel of the ident is more
relaxed and also pushes the humour of the ident forward. I’d say the target
audience for these idents would be for everyone, as they are family friendly,
yet still leaning towards teens and older people. Children would find the overshooting
flying woman and the chicken funny, but some of the adults would find the jokes
in the voice-over funny too. Their atmosphere in these idents are very positive,
humorous and are the perfect idents you would want to see before watching a
comedy or magazine show. The colours they have in their logo are just plain black
and white, but their idents are usually packed full of colours. The first ident
I analysed was very vivid and had many colours such as blue yellow and red. The
ident took place in a field which meant grass was surrounding the area, which
was very bright. The colours had a lot of saturation in them, making them stand
out much more and were brighter than anything else on the screen. The second
one had much less colour because it was not footage and instead a motion
graphic, which called for subtlety. It stands out from the background but gets
your attention because of the huge elephant in the centre of the shield and
because of how much detail there is on such a small thing. The last one has a
lot of blue in it, as the banners on the shelves are all white text on a white
background. It contrasts well with the white underneath it, which stands out. The first ident seems like it is in some sort
of slow motion, as the camera shot on the people encouraging the woman do not
appear to be in real time. This explains why the camera is moving slowly; they
wanted to emphasise the subjects in their shots. The movement in the second
ident is also slower than normal, as too quick of a motion would not suit that
particular sting. The camera shot in the last ident I analysed was moving
faster than the rest, but was not too fast to make it seem tacky. The movement
was fast enough to keep you occupied and left you wondering, as you did not
know what you would see until it was in complete sight. As for typography in
these idents, there isn't a lot, mainly because they relied on footage and
actions rather than text. Overall I think these idents were very professional
and it seemed Dave is more on the humour side of channel promotion rather than thinking
about what their channel features. They showed a good use of both footage and
motion design and made very interesting idents.
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