Week 2 - Fleshing out the Story

Even though it has only been the second week in this exciting journey to the finish line, we have come A LONG way!!! A lot of modifications to initial ideas were discussed this week, a lot more project management techniques have been solidified and a lot more has dawned clearer for us as we see our project come to life...

During class this week, we wowed everyone with our idea and organizational skills. However, we received some feedback and some pointers we would need to look into: meet with our facilitators to get a green-light on this, appoint a project lead and work on project management techniques.

Hence, we all set up meetings with our advisors and found a suitable time to discuss our ideas with them. I organized a meeting with Bing this Tuesday. Although I had set up a systematic animation-specific Presentation, things didn't go too well - and i sort of expected that.

Advisor Meeting

As I was creating the presentation, I realized that our scope was pretty huge. And that is exactly what Bing addressed too. He asked us to choose one of two options: either make one fully animated music video or make animated snippets for each video. Both can't be done. Fair enough.

Group meeting #1

So i set out an immediate meeting with my team. Not that this meeting on the 23rd of June, was before everyone else's advisor meetings, but only after mine. There was a lot of confusion. Chaos spread through our group chat and we were getting a little worked up on some miscommunicated information. Hence, we tried to clear it out in that meeting.

An overall brief from the outcome of that meeting is as follows (log from first meeting):

We decided that Paradise will be fully animated
Just a Dream will be fully filmed as live action
Locked In will be partially VFX (only a shot or 2) and incorporate choreography in it - more like a performance video
We considered to re-scope the project to 3 tracks instead of 4. However, after re-evaluating the ideas, we thought that it wouldn't make sense to leave out the most important track of the album without a visual. That's when we also realized that we never discussed what Silent will be like. So we thought that through and settled on creating a lyrical video using motion graphics, that will be done by the design team.

We also came to terms with a basic story structure. Here it is as follows:

The journey of a African American man with hopes and dreams only to be hit by reality.
He sees all the mistreatment of his people
Faces that mistreatment
Runs from his fears
Gets trapped and starts to lose his senses
Faces his own demons
Loses and ends with the blackout of haunting words.

A fully fleshed story needed to be discussed but this is what we had so far. I had transitions planned in my head and this is what I had come up with.

Paradise is be a dream where everything works together in harmony - a fake utopian city* - which transitions to an IRL shot of a guy waking up from his sleep, disturbed by a sudden awakening call. [Transition] This will be the opening shot for Just a Dream which is a completely filmed narrative Music Video that juxtaposes all its ideas to the visuals seen in Paradise. It depicts the harsh reality of chaos and destruction forcing the main character to escape from it, thus leading him to a broken down warehouse - the room to Locked In. As he closes the door, it signals the closing of Just a dream and transitions into Locked In - a performance music video with a shot or two of CGI. As he is faced with hallucinations of vivid memories, he blacks out on the floor, therefore slipping into the last MV which is a silent film styled lyrical video. We end with a subtle message from the music artist of the album.

Group Meeting #2

We scheduled this meeting after everyone had met with their advisors and they each had something really great to share. Joshua and Naya got very good responses from their advisors who were equally as excited as we are over this project.

However, we needed to discuss what our final deliverable for this trimester is going to be. This is where Joshua and I talked through, discussed ideas and finally settled on one deliverable (after a lot of evaluation). We decided on creating the Locked In music video by the end of this trimester - through three iterations (or more), we should aim to finalize one music video by the end of this term. As for the animation side, we are going to be working on the animatic for Paradise. Now, the reason for this is because the same character that will be used in Paradise will be used for Locked In. Hence, trying to finish him up by this trimester would help in speeding the workflow for the Paradise Animated video as well as the full production. That was settled.

A scene based on the philosophical book 'The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas', by Ursula K. Le Guin.(Thomas, 2020)

Research

From the research I have carried out during the week, it has helped me formulate my ideas better through a more distinctive cultural perspective. I have always been inspired by the story The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas (Guin, 1973) which I was planning on using as a visual metaphor for the storyline of Paradise.

In short, Omelas is a happy, utopian society with a problem: it's happiness is predicted on the misery of a child who lives in a cage under the city. From his suffering, they understand how important happiness is and how cruel justice can be. I would like to use this idea to base the main theme of the animation. This is because the underlying meaning of the story aligns with our message: on how "trapped" the people of color are, even until this day, where the "slavery" of their past was used to determine the establishment of the "luxuries" we currently have. Yet, even if "anyone wanted to help" these people rid themselves from their helpless ongoing "misery", they can't, or won't. They just choose to "walk away".

I got the access to reading the full story online, where I highlighted certain passages and phrases that i thought worked really well with the story we have formulated. This PDF is a highlighted version that i will be using as visual references.

Other research that I carried out helped me gain a better insight into how to plan a Music video.

How to Plan and Storyboard a Music Video (Filmora, 2020)

(Filmora Video Editor, 2020)

This video above explains the how to start planning a music video while listing all the helpful techniques a producer and director uses to storyboard and edit music videos. It also briefly explained the difference between Performance and Narrative videos, which is helpful in our case since we will be implementing both styles. Its a fun and informative video created by Filmora.

How to Storyboard for Animation (Buzan, 2019)

(Buzan, 2019)

Another amazing video I came across helped me understand the not only importance of storyboarding but also how to effectively storyboard. This was insightful, start to finish.

Inspirations (Research on music videos for ideas, styles and influences)

(Glover, 2018)

Inspiration for the walking down the streets part with ideas on how to depict other character charades through the animations.

(Don, 2020)

This animation gave me an idea on how to build up the environment as we see the character progressing through his dream. This way, we can add a creative look to our dream-like visual for the Paradise MV.

First Light (Stirling, 2018)

(Stirling, 2018)

From one of my biggest inspirations, Lindsey's creative style in this video wowed me. I enjoyed the part where she danced and interacted with the light and this was one of the inspiration we took into consideration for the locked in music video. However, it was later declined as we looked into the making of the video and found the process to be a little too complex for our stage. Hence, this idea was later scrapped out.

First song - Paradise (Intro) Completed

Yes, that's right! Our amazing Music artist has completed his first track which set a fire in each of us. We were wowed by his production and can't wait to begin working on this masterpiece. Here is the song.

Lyrics:

Paradise (lyrics)

(prod. amos)

E MINOR

Here we go again

Back to reality

I swear to God

Wait a minute, something's different

Am I dreaming?

The way you greeting me

Not even on your knee

Right on my neck where it hurt so bad

I been walking these streets

Ain't felt so god damn free

This how its supposed to be, just facts

You ain't bringing me down

Ain't telling me to turn around

And thats what paradise looks like baby

Looks like

I'ma be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone

But if someone put his hand on me, I'ma send him to the cemetery

And that won't be needed

You won't hear me screaming

Cause we are together

And ain't nothing better

And that won't be needed

You won't hear me screaming

Cause we are together

And ain't nothing better

And that won't be needed

You won't hear me screaming

Cause we are together

And ain't nothing better

The way you greeting me

Not even on your knee

Right on my neck where it hurt so bad

I been walking these streets

Ain't felt so god damn free

This how its supposed to be, just facts

You ain't bringing me down

Ain't telling me to turn around

And thats what paradise looks like baby

Looks like

I'ma be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone

But if someone put his hand on me, I'ma send him to the cemetery

And that won't be needed

You won't hear me screaming

Cause we are together

And ain't nothing better

I am simply in awe with this. I am burning with excitement at how passionate my teammates are and how we hype each other up as well. We have grown into a great family and its amazing how we just met this trimester.

I repeated this song in loop as i looked through references for visual inspiration as suggested in the How to Plan and Storyboard a Music Video (Filmora, 2020). I even made a pinterest board with ideas and inspos to help me further visualize ideas.

Pinterest board on my account dedicated to the first song Paradise (pinterest, 2020)

Project Management

With Joshua as our project leader, we are maintaining a Trello account for project management to keep a tab on what everyone is doing, from advisor meetings, to research and documentations to learning journals, everything! So far, we are all on time with our tasks.

Therefore in conclusion, we have done A LOT this week and I hope our teamwork grows. After all, I believe in the saying "Teamwork makes the dream work". Hoping for a great upcoming week.