The stop-motion masterpiece

So, this is the film we created during the workshop. See previous post for learning curves and comments.

Stop Animation Workshop 3.12.10

Last Friday we had a stop-animation workshop in school. We had a chance to use a slightly more professional set-up than that which we will use for our own work. By the end of the day we had produced about 25 seconds of animation.

The workshop itself was fairly useful. The people who delivered it pushed us into using things like story boards and into a way of working we weren't used to which, in a way, was both good and bad.

More than anything, the experience taught me a lot about how to move the characters between shots, and the kind of size of movements I would need to use. It also made me realise that making the animation is going to be an incredibly slow process. We worked literally for the whole day, a team of three of us only managed to make 25 seconds of video. We were, however, working at 25 frames per second. This makes fairly high resolution footage but is really time consuming. I hope to work at 12fps in my piece so I can produce work quicker. Although the animation won't be as smooth, that kind of feel may work well.

Hopefully I'll be able to upload the film we made once the file is emailed to me.

65daysofstatic (Ancillary Task)

65daysofstatic are a band I really like. They are particularly well known for their effective and interesting album covers. They are a band that have built up a reputation for their arty and mysterious image.

Here are some of their album and single covers:





You can see that they aren't really linking by any running theme or style, but are more based in an intriguing central image, presented simply. The band name and titles are discrete and do no detract from the image.

Good Evening (Dream Big)

Good Morning, Good Evening
I hope you like dreaming
You live to learn and you learn to live
It's positive and negative
I can't sleep but I dream Big (3x)

Well it hard to get to bed with a head full of dreams
pocket full of loose change rippin at the seams
and it hard to keep move with head full of steam
It's the green It's the scene It's everything

Hard to gain perspective when ya eyes wont close
It's hard to stand tall when you already on ya toes
money can't grow on trees yea I know
It's the dough It's the show that got me all froze
en I wanna change my whole lifen
runnen out a gas tell me who gon scifen
I'm liken my chances but I don't say jack
spin the wheel of fortune like I'm sajak
all I wanna do is is a ride in a maybach
look real important but please don't say that
thats all that matters  to meeeee
why can't I just dreaaaaaaaam

Hook

Well its hard to find peace when you fighten in a war
hard to see the stars when ya sleepin on the floor
take what you can get grab for a little more
at the mall lets ball who cares about debt anymooooooooooore
no freeebies
stay aliven  like the bee gees
if they renting on easystreet believe me
I'm buyin a penthouse yea
until then tho I got to get those flows
that I do thru the ghettos
and suburbs alike
cause I really like things that are nice
greed my only vice
but I know its only natural  (ooh)
so imma do what I have to do (yea)
and when I finally get some rest (uh huh)
I can dream bout shit thats fresh.

Hook

So... How does Adobe Premiere Pro work?

A little while ago, we had a workshop in After Effects (our video post-production software.) Useful as that was, I still need to become proficient with Premier Pro (our editing software) making stop-motion films.

So, I went online and found a tutorial which has proved very useful. It takes you through the process step by step, setting out what you have to do clearly. How very helpful!

Click the link here to read for yourself!

Oh wait, we have to do an Ancillary task!

So, I recently was reminded that aside from the video itself we also have to produce an Ancillary piece in the form of a CD Digipak. But what is a Digipak?

In basic terms, a Digipak is a paper version of traditional plastic jewel case that most CDs are sold in. Here are a few examples:

The music industry is now split between digipak and jewel cases. Many prefer digipaks due the the jewel cases tendency to break.

What exactly is it that makes a sucessful album cover design? This is a selection of some of the best covers of all time: http://www.wired.com/underwire/2010/06/gallery-album-covers/

Looking through them, it seems that there isn't one unifying theme that links them. They vary drastically in complexity and subject matter. Mostly, it seems that a successful cover has to continue the feel of the music itself. A lot of what the cover looks like seems to be dictated by the style or genre of the album. This is something I will have to think about when I am creating my design. It needs to work with the song, not against it.

Focus Group

As promised, here's my focus group! I conducted it to find out which of my possible song choices people responded best to. Overall, I think you'll agree, most people seemed to enjoy the Outasight video the best and thought it would work best for my video. I'm going to go with that song. It's the one I liked the most as well!


Media Research from Sam Paterson on Vimeo.

I've been reading...

Recently, I read 'The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy' by the god of animation that is Tim Burton. Whilst I don't plan to use any of the stories exactly, I really enjoyed the way that Tim created this world of tiny fantastic characters, and presented them in a slightly darker way than the norm. It was interesting to see Tim Burton's creative output right there on a page infront of you. The drawings he did were highly stylised and took a simular form to that of his stop-motion animated features.

Questions questions...

It's audience research time! I need to come up with some questions to ask before I head out so that I make sure that I'm getting all the information I need. But first of all, what do I actually want to find out...?

• What people typically expect from a music video.
• What people respond positively and negatively to in a music video.
• Whether people still utilise music videos as a format.
• How they view them.
• What each music genre implies in terms of the moving image.
• Any particularly significant examples.
• What makes a music video memorable.
• What people think of stop-motion (do they even know what it is?) 

So that's what I need to find out. Questions need to let me know what I need to know, without boring people.

1. When I say 'music video', what's the first example that comes to mind? What do you think makes it memorable to you?
2. Do you have any other favourite videos?
3. Do you watch music videos often? Would you prefer to watch music television or on an online streaming site like YouTube.
4. What music genre are you most interested in? What would you expect from a music video of that genre?
5. What would you expect of a conventional Hip-Hop video?
6. Any thoughts on stop-motion animations?

I've already done a post on my target audience. Ideally I should try to interview somebody fitting that description. Alongside that, however, I hope to interview a large variety of people on film.

But which song will I use...?

So my idea is moving forward.

I do, however, need to choose a song to use for my video.  It will help develop my ideas further. I've come up with three options and I'm going to choose from those.

Outasight - Good Evening (Dream Big)



Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly - Find The Time



Joshua Radin - Closer



I'm going to play a focus group these songs tomorrow and listen to their thoughts on them. Hopefully I'll then be able to make a decision...

Video Notes

Today, we watched a short documentary detailing the rise and evolution of the music video. I've made some quick notes under each section covered...

History

• First combination of music and film came with MGM music videos which were based around performances of popular songs.
• The 60s saw a rise in popularity of Rock 'n' Roll films staring artists like Elvis and the Beatles.
• Later that decade, the popularity of TV variety shows was increasing. They often featured musical segments where a band would do a live performance of whatever song they were promoting at the time.
• Often, artists were unable to appear live due to other commitments. In their place, they often created a visual piece or recorded performance to play in their absence.
• The Beatles saw an opportunity in these short films and began creating films themselves so their singles could receive TV airtime. A popular example is their video for 'Strawberry Fields.'
• Possibly the first music video as we would recognise it was the famous video for Queen - 'Bohemian Rhapsody.' It was too complex for live performance and the band wanted a way to bring their album cover to life, so a film was made on a tight budget in a short amount of time. Since then, the video has become iconic receiving a great deal of coverage and perhaps adding to the success of the song itself.

MTV

• MTV was launched in August 1981.
• In its beginning, it was only able to play 200 of the same videos which was hardly suitable to supply an entire channel, leading to its nickname 'Empty-TV.'
• British bands responded to the popularity of the channel by producing a greater quantity of videos in order to supply the ever more demanding audience.
• They made videos with a simplicity at heart. Budgets were limited, and complicated ideas often had to be replicated by cheaper means.
• MTV faced issues with funding. Whilst videos were a nice addition to the single, they needed to prove that they were viable as a business.
• By finding a small record shop in Oklahoma which has seen an increase of particular albums following their airtime on MTV, they showed that videos were a effective method of marketing a track. Aside from being an interesting arty production; they also sold records.

Big Spends to Anti-Video

• Following the MTV success story, videos saw escalating costs for ever more extravagant productions.
• The most popular artists, such as Michael Jackson and Will Smith, commonly spent more than 2 million dollars on one music video.
• Whilst this did make for a more 'glossy' final product, this did not necessarily reflect in a huge increase in profits.
• Artist sought to bring the art back into their videos by decreasing the budget, in some cases to bellow 500 dollars, in order to inspire a more creative output, far removed from the world of mainstream Pop music.
• Moby, Bjork and Fatboy Slim all made attempts at creating videos with a focus on low production costs, interesting concepts and simple creations. Often, these resulted in an individual and visually interesting outcome

What to do next...

I REALLY need to do some audience research. I've summarised my target audience in a post below. Bearing that in mind I should interview a variety of subjects. All different ages, tastes and backgrounds.

I also should make a final decision on my song. I have a few in mind; probably something hip-hop.

What a team!

oragami stop motion from Lizzy Gaskin on Vimeo.

Me and fellow media blogger had a crack at making a quick stop-motion of an Origami swan (Lizzy's poor spelling, not mine.)

It was fairly easy and quick to make. But the quality isn't great... Before working on my final piece I should experiment with things like frame rates.

Her Morning Elegance - Oren Lavie

Her Morning Elegance from Kenneth Chua on Vimeo.

This is an extremely successful example of a music video made using stop motion. It has over 10 million views on YouTube and a Grammy nomination. It is composed of 2096 still images that have been arranged to give the impression of a moving image.

As a music video it follows the common theme of following a daily routine. Towards the start you watch the light moving across the room giving some impression of the passage of time. You watch as the model completes some fairly mundane tasks; walking, riding the train, sleeping, spending time with a friend. Through the use of sleep-related items in the mise-en-scene (running over pillows, some pajamas flying past) these fairly typical actions take on a fair more interesting form. Mise-en-scene is key in establishing the actions themselves. The flashing lights imply the subway train. The models hair implies motion. The socks representing fish imply some fantastic underwater world.

As I have noticed in many of the films I have watched, stop-motion commonly features the idea of a whole world existing within our own. What I mean by this is that the entire action of the story takes place in a world that is contained in a bedroom. This is established by the use of floorboards beneath the bed and the props (books, shoes, papers) sitting beside it.

The editing is obviously key, as it is in any stop-motion. The shots are edited at a specific frame rate to imply a realistic motion in the its finished form. The fact that the shots at times are synchronised with the music, such as when the cello floats past as it is mentioned in the song and plays, also shows some conscious decisions which link the two media together.

I really like the video. The way it is contained in one room with objects that are seen every day makes it an interesting watch. Its inspiring also, to think that I could have a go at creating something like that myself. You can view the individual frames at http://www.hmegallery.com/, and from that you can see the kind of movements made between each frame. Stop-motion like this might just be the answer for me.

Some bits of research!

I'm very interested in trying out some stop motion for my coursework. Still somewhere between The children's drama brief and the music video, so here are some examples of both that I found interesting...


Music Video


Passion Pit - Sleepyhead ⊱ JazZstePpa Remix ⊰ from Jazz steppa on Vimeo.


Children's Television




Both pieces seem to develop this idea of animated, smaller characters, having their own world within our own. You see Morph doing his magic show in amongst some life sized posessions, and the black toy moving across the desk.

I thought the music video became fairly abstract in parts, but it kind of works. Suits the style of music very well. There didn't seem to be a unifying narative as such but, then again, does it really need one? The simple movements alone seemed to provide amusment enough.

The children's show is centred around one loveable  character 'Morph', and the show follows him on some suitably adorable adventures. The challenge in this type of work is to create a character that children will enjoy watching in the same way they do Morph, Postman Pat or any other successful children's character for that matter.

In terms of animation, Morph is far in excess of the level I can hope to achieve, but I think I can take some ideas from it and translate them to my own work. The use of a single protagonist in a simple humanoid form should make a realistic effect more achievable. The levels of animation in the music video are far more approachable. It seems to have been created fairly quickly, away from proffessional studios. I should look further into home-grown stop-motion of this style in the future...