Production

The production of my animation involved the use of photoshop. 
It was predominately made using tweens to give a sharp movement keeping in with the desired comic book style of animation.

This project was a first for me using Photoshop for the vast majority of the animation process and I found it to be easier than I imagined. 

The use of tweens really gave me an advantage for getting the effect I wanted, however, I did experience quite a bit of ghosting between the frames which I wasn't 100% sure how to turn off but luckily I thought this added to the effect quite nicely. 

I decided that perhaps animating a whole music video would be quite an ambitious project to do well within the time contraints therefore the idea changed to be a trailer which shows off the band. I really like how this had turned out.

Creative Response

I decided to create a short trailer for the virtualised version of the band Nirvana.I chose to design the characters in a way that reflects the general vibe of the band which is quite dark and rugged.

I decided to adapt this into a sort of comic book style, quite similar to the style of the Gorillaz.


Initially, I had chosen to create a full animated music video for a song of Nirvana's but alongside attempting to write my paper, this would have been a very ambitious task to take on. 

The majority of the animation was created using Photoshop with the use of tweens to then be edited using iMovie. 

My chosen track is an instrumental version of 'Tourettes' by Nirvana. I chose this as I didn't want a song with words in so I thought this would be a great track (very grungy) to use to portray the vibe of the band to compliment the animation.

Research #2

 

I found this book 'Bubblegum Music Is The Naked Truth: The Dark History of Prepubescent Pop from the Banana Splits to Britney Spears' to be very helpful when writing the chapter on virtual bands. 

The book offered extensive information on the Archies (a virtual band that is known by many) and a lot more information on perhaps more obscure virtual bands.  It served as a great reference book for an otherwise overlooked musical genre. On the other hand it provides a look at the blatantly commercial, sometimes deceptive and occasionally cynical aspects of pop music which made for a very interesting read.

Research #1

 

This book, Money for Nothing: A History of the Music Video from the Beatles to the White Stripes, has been a great help in researching the history of the music video. 

It involves an extensive amount of information on classic animated music videos and the technologies used. It offered a great insight to the difficulties of animating music videos in the late 70s/early 80s.