Tv idents for a season of films featuring Hong Kong Actor turned Director : Stephen Chow
Films featuring Stephen Chow Final Justice Faithfully Yours Dragon Fight Tragic Heroes Thunder Cops II The Unmatchable Match Final Combat Love Is Love My Hero Lung Fung Restaurant The Unmatchable Match Curry and Pepper Sleazy Dizzy Look Out, Officer! All for the Winner When Fortune Smiles Triad Story Legend of the Dragon God of Gamblers II The Top Bet Fist of Fury 1991 Fight Back to School
God of Gamblers Part III Back to Shanghai Magnificent Scoundrels The Banquet The Gods Must Be Crazy III Tricky Brains Fist of Fury The Thief of Time Fight Back to School II Justice, My Foot Royal Tramp Royal Tramp II King of Beggars Fight Back to School III My Hero 2 Flirting Scholar The Mad Monk Love on Delivery Hail the Judge Out of the Dark Sixty Million Dollar Man Forbidden City Cop
God of Cookery All’s Well, Ends Well 1997 Lawyer Lawyer The Lucky Guy King of Comedy The Tricky Master Shaolin Soccer Kung Fu Hustle CJ7
Concept
Who?
Stephen Chow is one of the most popular and respected Hong Kong actors who started his career playing small cameo roles in low budget films.
What?
Films that star Stephen Chow in are almost always comedies of various genres ranging from romance to thrillers. Majority of these were filmed in Hong Kong, which, didn’t really reach out internationally. In 1999 - 2002, he starred, wrote and directed one of his first films; Shaolin Soccer which became incredibly successful in Asia and to an extend reached audiences around the world.
Why?
I have chosen to work on a season of films that feature Stephen Chow because he is one of my favourite chinese actors / comedians. Although he is popular and amongst some of the most respected actors in asia, he has remained almost unknown outside.
Audience
My audience is pretty much anyone whose into lighthearted comedy of a range of genres. People who are interested in something different, of a different culture etc. People who enjoy watching comedies range from all ages and backgrounds. I think the main issue for promoting this for the idents would be to communicate the fact that it’s chinese comedy and that it’s something different to what most people are used to. There are no general demographics in the UK on films that feature Stephen Chow as he is unknown here and his type of comedy is quite different to what we’re used to. Most people would probably associate a chinese film to be of a martial arts nature. I would think that the main challenge of this would be to communicate to the audience, what type of film it’s going to be.
The design of the idents will be like introducing a completely new film to the audience.
Tone of voice As Stephen Chow’s films are often quite lighthearted with a comedy nature, it would be ideal for the tone of voice of the idents to reflect:
- Fun - Random - Comedy - Lighthearted
Visual direction Examples and inspiration taken from existing tv idents. 1/ More4 tv ident. A series of similar idents of this visual style were created showing the syncronised motion of vector shapes. 2/ As we are to avoid using video due to potential technical difficulties, stop motion was a potential way forward as shown from the E4 ident. 3/ Channel Four ident that using the shapes to form the ‘4’ over a static image which can be changed according to whatever show/ program it is about to introduce.