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Tools
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The designers at Comedy Central explained
that there's a lot of planning that goes into creating the
IDs, promotional, and packaging spots. Each of these
products is usually less than 30 seconds long, so it must accomplish
its purpose in very little time.
| 1. |
First,
designers come up with some ideas for a spot. Kendrick explained
that when he was doing show packages, he always came up with
at least 3 ideas and about 20 IDs. He said that, "Coming
up with more than one idea is important because it challenges
you to think outside the most obvious thing."
He said, "It's not easy but
you have to keep pushing yourself and inspiring yourself to
see other things." |
| 2. |
 After
you have the ideas, you draw a few frames or storyboards
to see how the concept actually looks and how it can be animated. |
| 3. |
You
have to show these ideas to other people, including the Design
Director, and get their feedback and approval. Most creative
work at Comedy Central is done in teams. The teams usually
include at least two people-a designer and art director. Often
a design team will also include a producer/writer and storyboard
artist. |
| 4. |
Once
an idea is approved, you actually have to make it. You must
decide what elements are needed and then you must to create
them. Often the first thing to do is to shoot video of people
and objects that you want to use in the spot. In the studio,
you can take pictures of people, models of things like buildings,
money…. Almost anything.
 Filming
is usually done in front of a green
screen (or sometimes a blue screen). The green screen
is a piece of fabric or board that is painted or dyed a particular
color of green. (You can buy the board, fabric or paint at
some art stores like Pearl Paint.). Once it is imported onto
the computer, this green background can be dropped out (erased)
and you can put anything else in its place.
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| 5. |
 Sometimes
you need to create elements from scratch for your spot. You
might use a pen tablet to draw these onto your computer or just
a mouse. |
| 6. |
After
you've filmed or created all the objects you need, you can begin
to put them together and to add special effects. The process
of combining elements is like making a collage. In the TV industry,
it's called compositing.
The designers at Comedy Central use a computer program called
Inferno
to do much of their compositing. |
| 7. |
You
can also add special effects (like strobe lighting or wind blurs)
and 2-D animation. Comedy Central uses a computer program called
Adobe After Effects to do most of its 2-D special
effects. Designer Mark Boutges explains that the program has
about 10,000 different effects and filters, so it gives you
a lot of options. |
| 8. |
Once
you have all the effects and everything is composited, you
have to edit the segment to make it TV-ready. This includes
adding sound in the right places and clipping it down so it's
exactly the right number of seconds long.
The
designers at Comedy Central use a computer system (hardware
and software) called Avid
to do this. Avid is a non-linear editing system and is also
known as a media composer . It allows you to digitize
video footage, organize the footage into the sequence you
want it in, trim sequences, edit audio, add effects, create
titles and output the work onto video. Avid is a very important
tool in the TV and film industry.
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