Ideas For Animation (Mind Map)

Here is a mind map of all of our ideas for our animation music video. We thought about making models out of clay, but we found more negatives than there were positive. For example, it will be hard for us to create people out of the clay, and it will also be hard to change their positions (eg. their mouths) and then change them back to be in exactly the same place.

We also thought about making puppets, by drawing pictures and attaching them to sticks. This could have been a good idea as it will be easy for us to change their appearance but re-drawing the picture, although this may take a long time. We also then had the issue of how to hold the puppets without the camera seeing the sticks, which we don's want as it will ruin the effect of the animation.

We also thought about using lego to construct our animation. This would be easy for us to do, as we can create things easily, such as houses etc. It would also be easy for us to make new scenes. There are negatives with this though, as lego people are hard to move around as they can only bend in one direction, and are also not human like.

Our final decision for our animation music video is to use Barbie Dolls. This is because we can use male and female dolls, and it it obvious which is which. They are also very easy to move around as they are bendy and flexible. They are also very human like so it will fit in with the story of a girl and a boy. There are two negatives with using Barbie Dolls, one being that they may be difficult to stand up, but we have resolved this problem by deciding to use plasticine/blue tac on their feet in order for them to stand up without falling over. Another weakness is that they cannot change their facial expression, but this may add to the effect of using Barbies and also add to the humor of the video.

Animation idea

Our animation is going to be a narrative based animation music video. We have decided to do this as the lyrics to the song tell a story, and so we have decided to make our own story line out of the lyrics. We have also done this as it keeps people entertained throughout the video as they are following a story, and we hope that the animation and story we include will keep people entertained and make them want to watch our animation music video. 

    

We are going to follow the story of the song, and include two characters, a male and a female. We are going to use Barbie Dolls to play our characters as we have decided these will play and portray what we want our characters to be like, as it it obvious which is the female and which is the male. We also think this will bring some humor into our animation music video.

                

We are going to add clouds and a sun in the background of our animation, which are going to move to make it look more realistic and add detail to our animation music video. We are going to use a blue background to act as the sky, using green material for the grass. 

9 Shot Analysis

We chose to analyse Jessie J's music video 'Domino' as it is in the same genre as our chosen music video, 'Call Me Maybe' which is dance pop.
The videos are similar as they are eye catching and colourful. There are many camera techniques used in the Domino video, for example many close ups, medium shots and long shots. There are also canted shots used when she is leaning to the side, in which the camera follows her. The mise en scene is very sophisticated, which is mixed with fantasy as she is wearing a butterfly mask in parts of the video. Her costume is very colourful with many patterns, which engages people to watch the video as it is very eye catching and draws you in. There is a spotlight used throughout the video, especially when a long shot is used. It is a quite dark video, but the spotlight adds more effect on her and her outfit. Her body language matches the lyrics of the song, and as it is a dance pop song she is dancing and jumping around a lot. There are a lot of short shot durations used in the video, which is parallel to the fast, bouncy music.

The elements used in this music video are going to help us to construct our own animation as it has given us ideas on what sort of mise en scene and editing we should use in order to match the music.

Animation Song Choice.

We chose 'Call Me Maybe'- Carly-Rae-Jepson.
We picked this song as we can use a variety of camera angles and mise en scene. It is a happy, catchy song and it gives us a wide range of storylines which we could use in our own video. The original video is a fun video, and so we want to create a new version from our own ideas. It is dance pop genre, and we thought it would a fun song for us to create an animation for people to enjoy.