Week 1 - The Beginning of an exciting End!
- Leighanne Fernandes
- Jun 20, 2020
- 7 min read
Updated: Jun 21, 2020
Title inspired from teammate Josh!
Starting off with week 1, a lot of thoughts and ideas ran through my head. Should I fully flesh out an idea I want to work on? Should I go solo? Can I work solo? What do I want to do? And the list goes on. I wasn't really sure with what to do although I jotted down brief points of the "type" of work I want to create which could showcase my set of skills in the best most creative way possible - a Visual Film/Music Video.
(Beyonce, 2013)
Art direction in Music videos have been my ultimate inspiration since the beginning. Whether it be a full animated, semi-animated or live action music video, I have been wanting to create an intriguing story through audio visuals. Not only through that, but also tie in a creative storyline that gets fans excited about a next release. My ultimate inspiration for this type of media has been BTS 방탄소년단, a South Korean Boy group who talks about deep issues revolving around depression, suicide, mental illnesses, society and so on, through their songs. The way their lyrics have a second underlying meaning and their music videos depicting a complex storyline over the course of two years is something that hooks their fans - it leads them to creating "fan theories" that makes them crave for the final concluding pieces. That's something that truly blows my mind, especially when the releases are non-linear and date back to their debut or pre-debut. This album that involved the releases of prequels and sequels was titled The Most Beautiful Moment in Life, Part 1 (BTS, 2015).
Another artist/ Youtube channel I have been inspired by is Dream Perfect Regime DPR's Eyes On You Visual Film (eyesmag, 2019). The art style, the story, the visuals is everything! The aesthetics is what intrigues me the most here, and was one of my inspirations when coming up with ideas for my own final project. See below to watch the full video.
However, I went into class 1 without any expectations. We just went over the assignments in brief and discussed some milestones. We were then asked to share our ideas and grab like-minded people on board with your ideas (that is, if you find someone from the class).
Day 1
Raihan, an audio student who produces music and has released a few albums in the past, spoke up about creating an album on the theme of BlackLivesMatter, a movement that has shaken the world again in the midsts of a global pandemic. A topic that has still not changed the way people view humans of colour is still very disturbing to me. Hence, when he brought up the cause for a 'music album' he was planning to work on, I immediately took that opportunity to collaborate. Along with me, a few others jumped on board - Joshua, Naya and Arjun. We shared emails and got in touch after class.
The thing that struck me very clearly at that moment was when Raihan said he had been wanting to create an animated music video but never found someone to collaborate on. It really resonated with me because I had always been wanting to create visual content for music artists but never really found an artist to work with or an artist good enough to trust with my work. So it really seemed as if the pieces matched well.
That same day, we all came together and formed a group chat on Whatsapp. We added in Amos as Raihan felt a need for another animator would seem efficient. Later that day, we all had an online meeting on zoom where we discussed potential plans for our final project. The enthusiasm from every team member was beyond amazing! Everyone was super excited, including myself and the ideas just jumped right out of us. The fact that we all were developing each others' ideas, adding more to it, weighing the ups and downs of each idea, all happening in the very first meeting made me trust this group even more. It motivated me in ways that I didn't know could be possible. I wanted to revisit those ideas that I had in the past and make them work now, for this project.
I guess the passion was really evident in me as I had so many ideas flow out. My teammates could see that as I repeatedly shared inspirations and references on our group chat as well as "9 Minute Long Voice Notes" (that kind of became a small inside joke, haha) with the group. To be fairly honest, it was the group's chemistry and the comfortability of this group that made me express myself better. I am looking to sustain that good relationship with each member so that we can help build each other up as we build ourselves!
Day 2
By the end of the second day, Raihan sent us the story of what each track will be about. The storyline that he expressed nearly got me in tears at how amazingly it was written and how much it inspired me because I was so on board with the direction it was going into. As I read the story of each track, I could literally visualize how they would visually look if we chose to create them. So, the idea was to choose 4 out of the 8 tracks and create a dynamic visual storyline that ties them in all at the end. Below are the stories for each track of the album and the tracklist in order.
After that, Raihan went onto explaining which 4 tracks he thought would link well with each other - Locked In, Pointless, Not Enough, Silent. I sort of disagreed with this and explained my reasoning through a voice note. Here's a brief of what i said:
The above mentioned songs seem to be very heavy in terms of getting the message across. The only way to fully get it across to the audience would be through a live action depiction. There's hardly any room for Animation or design to come into play.
What if we don’t have all four tracks as the heaviest tracks? These songs would be good if we leave it to the viewer's discretion. Let them grasp what they want to and how they want to rather than us being forceful with our visuals on them to get just one meaning through.
It would be cool to use the lighter tracks for the visual album such as Paradise (Intro), and Just a Dream.
"Paradise" being a dream that's unreal can be done through the exploitation of Animated mediums. There's a lot of room for creativity and freedom of expression through animation for this track.
"Just a Dream" can be a transition to waking up from that dream so it can be live action with a bit of VFX that reminds them of glimpses from their dream
"Locked In" can be one of the heavier tracks that conveys the meaning of the track better, also because it has some connection to the ongoing pandemic which can be very relatable to the audiences who view it.
"Silent" is the title track, which will have a bit of all three tracks' visuals featuring in one, sort of like easter eggs coming together at the end. So its a track that all of us get to work on collaboratively.
Having the beginning, middle and end tracks of the album makes the full story of the album resonate through the story structure: beginning, middle, end. That way we "see" how the music advances through the album.
After reasoning with them, they seemed to get my idea and see where I was going with ensuring everyone gets their own spotlight. Naya also mentioned to perhaps consider adding quotes from influential people such as Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X into the lyrics of the songs so that it adds value to its meaning. Raihan also mentioned that the songs will be metaphorical and so the lyrics of having a relationship is metaphorical to the relationship between the Blacks and White policemen.
From the animation standpoint, we were thinking of adding trippy visuals to make the dream feel like a dream. Some inspirations for the artistic style are listed below that were discussed with the team.
1. Defqwop - Heart Afire (Animated Music Video)
The simplicity in the character design of this music video is what I was intrigued by. Its best to keep it simple that conveys the message clearly (World Music & TV, 2017).
2. Physical by Dua Lipa
The blend between live action and animated sequences, as well as incorporated VFX elements is what we have picked up from this video (Dua Lipa, 2020). Below is an animated gif of that particular scene that hooked me onto its aesthetic appeal.
3. True Damage - GIANTS (ft. Becky G, Keke Palmer, SOYEON, DUCKWRTH, Thutmose) | League of Legends
Everything in this music video is GORGEOUS, but definitely not doable with a small team of animators. Hence, the scenes that I feel visually intriguing and would like to try implementing is the one in the gif below. It might be too far fetched but its still an inspiration for now (League of Legends, 2019)
4. GRADES - King (Official Video)
This video is so cute and the visual style is so playful, I love it! This is some good VFX inspiration right there! (Grades, 2015)
In conclusion, tis week felt so productive in terms of fleshing out an idea and knowing what we each want to do. I could gauge a clear sense of responsibility over the contributions each member wanted to make towards their final project and its outstanding. I'm glad that I have reached up to here in my learning journey to be blessed with such an amazing team of fellow enthusiasts. I'm incredibly grateful for them and wish to work to the best of my abilities with them. Let's see where this takes us!
References:
Beyonce (2013, Dec 13). "Self-Titled": Part 1. The Visual Album [screenshot from video file].
Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcN6Ke2V-rQ
BTS [방탄소년단]. (2015, April 29). The Most Beautiful Moment in Life, Part 1 [Digital Recording].
South Korea: Big Hit Entertainment.
Dua Lipa (2020, Jan 31). Physical [music video]. Retrieved from
Eyesmag (2019, Mar 20). 디피알(DPR) 스페셜 프로젝트 ‘EYES OF DPR’ 〈아이즈매거진〉 단독 공개!
DPR Special Project'EYES OF DPR' <Eyes Magazine> released exclusively! [ video file].
Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnaxoZ8XNu4&t=89s
Grades (2015, Jun 1). GRADES - King (Official Video) [video file]. Retrieved from
League of legends (2019, Nov 10). True Damage - GIANTS (ft. Becky G, Keke Palmer,
SOYEON, DUCKWRTH, Thutmose) | League of Legends [video file]. Retrieved from
World Music & TV (2017, Dec 30). Defqwop - Heart Afire (Animated Music Video) [video file].
Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkYpX0fJ6pQ
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