DCM Ident Explanation

“intensity”
a 25 second ident for
Digital Cinema Media
by Petras Ulickas

Brief
Digital Cinema Media represents
80% of the UK cinema advertising
market. They connect brands, films
and people through powerful media
experiences that take place before,
during and after the movies. The
creative challenge was to create a 25
second ident and fill it with a creative
interpretation of the true power of
cinema. The DCM ident is one of
the first and last things that people
see when going to watch a film. It
needs to set the scene and have
an impact. It has to illustrate and
celebrate the emotion cinemagoers
feel when they take their seats and
enter the world of the movies.
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why
this
brief?
I took this D&Ad project because
it combined subjects that I am
interested in. DCM’s brief provided
an opportunity to grow my skills in
advertising, moving image, animation
and brand expression.
what
was a
must?
Idea must bring to life the emotion of
cinema. DCM mark should be used
as a part of the ident. When DCM
mark is used, it should always be
active. It is literally activated with light
and lives and breathes via content
within it. The ident must resolve to
and end frame that uses the strapline
“Welcome to our World”.
who’s
the
target?
The target audience is cinemagoers
of all ages, from everywhere, but
mainly UK.
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Idea
Tension is one of the most essential
experiences during the film. Gradually
connecting image with sound, this
emotion goes straight to our hearts.
The idea is to capture this feeling by
using DCM’s logo as a heart, beating
faster with every step further to the
places that cinema takes. Cinema
is something that isolates people
from the outside world, leaving them
focused completely on the imaginary
alter-world experience. This is why
the whole ident is shot in closed
(tunnels, narrow city streets) and
open spaces (panoramic nature and
city views) emphasizing the concept
behind the big screen. Moreover,
reflecting on DCM as a company
which advertises most of the movies
in UK, the logo flashes an authentic
visual representations of BAFTA
nominated movie posters, which
connects British company with a
prestigious Britain film awards event.
Filmed in three different countries
(UK, US and India) the ident explores
visual culture globally, just like
cinema – it brings people to the most
authentic places of the world in just a
second.
4

eacon
Beacon Hill, is situated near
Loughborough, in Leicestershire,
England. It was featured as one
of the most interesting wonders in
Midlands and has been awarded
the Green Flag Award. It consists of
beautiful aerial views, sharp-like hills
and untouched countryside nature.
But what is the most important - it
was perfect for capturing the true
beauty and feel of the nature, which
gave an intriguing contrast between
the other, more urban footage.
7

London is one of the most busiest
cities in the World. The whole city
perception is based on a fast paced
dynamism and incorporation of
various multicultural styles while
still maintaining the tradition. While
most of the time city is filled with
thousands of people, what I tried
to capture was a pure urban
architecture, an environment that is
only possible to capture only during
the earliest morning. In the areas like
Canary Wharf, the main objective
was to film wide minimalistic urban
spaces that will compliment the
Beacon Hill’s footage. Whereas
places like underground tunnels and
narrow Tower Hill streets were more
suitable for capturing more intense,
closed-like emotion. The whole
filming, including the Bloomsbury
theatre took nearly a week, due to
the changing weather conditions.
One of the most important objective
was to differentiate film from cinema
experience. The whole emotion of
the cinema begins straight after the
audience enters the theatre. This
is why ident contains glimpses of
the iconic red seating to emphasize
the part where cinema experience
begins – by taking a seat.
11

From the glimpses of the Californian
beach, funky street performers, neon
light signs and the tracks of iconic
Muni tram, my own filmed footage
of San Francisco city braced the
visual language between calmness
and intensity. The city scape
under the bright yellowish sunlight
cherished the glimpse of the great
American film culture. Moreover, the
vivid colours of beautiful, although
sometimes deadly water world
filmed in Steinhart Aquarium and
the Aquarium of the Bay embraced
the truly remarkable moments of
documentary genre films.
What is more important, is that
San Francisco footage broke the
global boundary for the ident. Which
gave a superior multi-cultural flow for
DCM’s identity visual expression.
16

vangani

In a short period, collaboration is
what makes the project go beyond
boundaries. I was lucky enough to
come across a team of who were
shooting a documentary in India,
what is more important, is that I
managed to collaborate with them by
telling my idea and explaining what
particular footage I needed for my
ident. With some samples of sight
views from Vangani village, I gave
particular instructions on how the
footage should be filmed to suit my
“Intensity” idea. Why did I go global?
Because DCM is a company which
connects movies from all over the
world to one single screen across
the United Kingdom.
Just like London or San Francisco,
Vangani provided a completely
different view of the visual culture
and this is what made the ident
more culturally and visually rich.
Which made the viewer to familiarise
more with the ident and connected
DCM with a broader audience of
cinemagoers.

eak down
The whole production process
involved three major parts. The first
one was to capture the footage
which will go as a background
behind the DCM logo. Since the idea
was based on capturing the moment
of tension, the clip had to be shot
as if it is going further and further
through different places. During my
research stage on cinematography
I came across the glide camera
technique, which involved a perfectly
balanced camera mechanism
which holds the camera without
any turbulence even if the camera
man was running. Moreover, the
footage that was captured, had
to be colour corrected, to match
the intension of delivering various
emotions for the viewer through
visual language. The second part
was to interpret the DCM logo
using company’s two main branding
identity visual expressions – light and
dynamism. Using the posters from
all the BAFTA film awards winners, I
have managed to extract the colour
schemes for each particular film
and manipulate them by adding
more light and motion blur. Even
though they change very quickly
during the ident, this key idea holds
a connection between films and
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their advertisement business (which
DCM represents) and it also gives
an intriguing story behind the 25
seconds advertisement. The third
part was to combine the last DCM
identity expression – emotion. By
using a heart beat record I’ve had to
edit the sound to the cleanest purity
and add an intensively growing pace
to match my main idea. The next
step was to animate the DCM logo
as if it was beating according to the
heart sound. Lastly, the combination
of these three stages was what
made the ident unique and related to
DCM’s brand identity.
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