Storyboarding

This image here shows the character progression I have gone through to create the band members animated figures. The top image shows the draw characters in their first stage. The second shows my initial ideas for the first set location and my interpretation of that. The third is my first digital collaboration of the digital characters and the background. The fourth is simply the same as the image before but in colour as I have yet to choose how I wish my video to be saturated or desaturated.

After experimenting with my character designs I placed them into flash to draw digital counterparts, which would then be used in my animation. These came out looking like the following images above. The beginnings of my storyboard also began to take hold as I began to plan locations and further narrative structure. The music video will begin with the performers, Tom (singer) and Sam (guitarist) located on a lonely road through the desert. Both look into the camera and perform, this is to engage the audience and follow codes and conventions of performance based music videos. However with this one I intend to have a dual narrative and possibly subvert codes and conventions by merging the performance section of the animation into the narrative to create almost a mixed narrative and performance towards the end. I chose to locate the beginning of the animation on a desert road as it is a lonely, desolate place and it mirrors this stage of the narrative in which our main character in the narrative ( not a particular band member ) will be searching for love and at the beginning he is very alone. As the narrative continues he will eventually find it creating a stereotypical happy ending.

This is one screenshot from my storyboard which is nearing completion. Once completed I will take these still shots and create an animatic which will give a detailed impression of how I wish my final piece to look.

initial ideas for storyboard

After listening to the song several times I began listing how I thought the song felt and I began to produce initial ideas as to themes and subjects that should be portrayed in the narrative of my music video. I thought that as it is a common factor in most musical lyrics I think I shall include the theme of love/relationships. This would be further reinforced by the slow paced and lonely feel to the track I'm using. After more brainstorming of ideas I concluded this would be my focal theme. I already designed my initial character designs so I know the look and style of how I want the animation to be, this will follow a similar visual experience as the monkeehub animations. As the song sounds very soft and placid, and the title 'complacent' seems very fitting to this therefore I wish to create a similar tone in the music video. 

Conclusion for target audience

After analyzing my questionnaire results I have concluded my target audience. As my chosen song and band (  Complacent acoustic by Against Spoken Words ) are an indie band from Bucks I need target the appropriate audience. The audience Im aiming for is to be aged mainly under 19 although I am aware others older may listen to a similar style of music. I will aim more towards the male audience using correct props for the genre in the video and having a narrative that runs through.

Codes and conventions of music videos

Media Music Video Codes And Conventions Presentation

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This presentation was made by me and the two other students studying music videos. This is our research for all the codes and conventions of traditional music videos. Although Im creating an animated music video the codes and conventions of standard film music videos are crucial. From looking at these codes and conventions and those of animated music videos I have gained a larger insight into what I can do in my video.

Questionaire Results

These are the results from the questionnaires after 100 people answered it.

1: Gender    

   M = 58    F= 42

I tried to ask a similar amount of boys as to girls to get an even spread.

2:Age             

19 and below =40

20 -29= 27

30 - 39 = 12

40+=21

Again here I tried to get an even spread although I did see to ask more younger participants, this mainly due to the majority of my questionnaire work being based at college.

3:What type of music do you prefer

Metal=11

Rock=16

Indie=22

Pop=13

RnB=29

Hip Hop=19

Rap=18

Dance=21

other=27

Here participants were allowed to tick more than one box. The majority of answers here were well spread and a significant correlation wasn't clearly visible however it did appear slightly that the younger participants chose dance, rap and metal whilst older participants chose pop and rock.

4:When watching an animated music video what musical genre do you expect it to be on.

Metal=4

Rock=11

Indie=31

Pop=17

RnB=15

Hip Hop=15

Rap=26

Dance=29

other=35

Here again participants were allowed to tick more than one box. The majority of answers here were in indie and other categories followed by rap and dance music. 

4b:If it was that genre what props would you expect to see

........................................................................................................................

There are too many variations of answers to list them all here but most commonly ones written seemed to fit the stereotypical norms. If people chose hip hop and rap they'd expect to see props such as guns, money, cars, women, luxury items etc

Whilst people who expected to see metal and rock videos expected to see props such as guitars, rainy stormy weather, black hair, women and moody atmospheres. 

5:What effects do you like to see in animated music videos

....................................................................................................

Again here there were a variety of answers and no real correlation was visible.

6: What narrative style do you prefer in music videos

Dual Narrative=36

Narrative=32

Performance based=25

No Narrative =7

Here it was clear that the audience would prefer a music video with a narrative in it rather than a performance based video or one with no narrative what so ever.

6b: Give reasons for this choice

...................................................................................................

Here the majority of people stated that a narrative in the music video helped them stay engaged.

After gathering all these results and analyzing them I have come to some conclusions. It seems that out of the 22 people, who ticked indie in one of their preferred music boxes, 19 of them were in the age category of 19 and below. Females tended to prefer Pop, RnB, Dance and Indie music whilst boys usually answered Rock, Rap and Metal. Also of the 25 who preferred a performance based video 24 of them were in the age categories of 30 - 39 and 40+. After looking through all my results I am beginning to gather an idea as to who my target audience is to be.