OUAN406 - A Tale in The Sting: Discovery Initial Ideas

OUAN406 - Discovery Channel Ideas:

This was probably the hardest solution I had to solve out of the three that I chose yet I stuck by it as I wanted a challenge and although I could have a little bit of humour in the ident as Discovery Channel is fairly laid back, it was still going to be difficult and is completely different to that of the other two.

One of my ideas was to stick to the theme of having the orbiting "D" logo with some kind of animation in the middle of the sphere. I thought maybe something majestic and epic such as a leaping cheetah or galloping gazelle running towards the viewer/camera would be a nice little idea. The background could consist of raindrops running down the screen with a blurred filter on top so that the audience wouldn't be too distracted from the foreground and logo.

Another idea was that a lion would pop its head out of the grass that surrounded the bottom of the screen and as the grass rustled, the lion would pounce out of the grass, run across the screen with its mane flowing in the wind and jump into the patch of grass at the right hand side of the screen. The discovery logo would swing from the top of the screen in the breeze and the lion's paws would spring out of the grass in an attempt to catch the logo in the air. After a few swipes at the logo, the logo would fall from the string/rope holding it in the air and crash into the grass below sending leaves flying into the air.

My last idea was that the Discovery logo could take up the majority of the screen and the D would spin around the sphere like their current idents. Then, the globe would turn into a camera lens almost (i'd prefer a fish-eye lens to add some depth and make it more interesting to the viewers) and a bird would swoop down with its wings flapping steadily and land on a perch out of view from the lens and pop its dangling head into view and look curiously through the lens audience. It would then prepare for take off and fly away after a few seconds. There would be swaying silhouettes of trees as the background with an orange/pink hue to give the look of a sunset in the Sahara.

I wanted to stick with a natural theme as Discovery focus heavily on nature and animal documentaries. Although they make various other shows, I think a natural theme would draw the audience in as let's face it, everyone loves animals of some description. It would also be child-friendly as if I used a cold-hard scientific theme with plenty of greys and silvers, it wouldn't really be as eye-catching and fun.

I stuck with the idea of a lion character rustling in the grass and then pouncing into the grass to catch the Discovery logo. It seemed fun, light-hearted and would allow me to watch reference videos and observe how lions pounce, move and sneak up on their prey.