1. What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?
Through this module I have developed skills in multiple project management/time management as well as concept building and visualising ideas effectively. I felt I have failed to manage my time effectively when working on 4 projects at the same time. this was due to the lack of planning and misjudgement upon choosing briefs that was realistic to meet the deadline. However after consulting tutors and getting advice on resetting the deliverable, I made the necessary compromises to make the projects achievable. I learned to review my progresses against time scales and making changes needed to achieve set goals for multiple briefs.
2. What approaches to generating work and solutions to problems have you developed and how have they helped?
I approached these three briefs with great enthusiasm, it's the first time where I had three briefs set to the same deadline as well as another project from my elective running into the 4 weeks period. I made initial plans for the 4 week period for each project and outlined set tasks for each day, but the plan was not followed as closely as I expected. I tent to spent more time on each project than planned hence resulting a domino effect falling behind schedule. I carried out researches for each brief and then built my initial ideas around the findings from the research. Then I tried to act quickly on making decisions for the concepts and visual styles. By making quick decisions it help me forcing myself to put the projects into realistic time scales. However the briefs I picked and the tasks I set out to achieve was not realistic within the time scale given. I had to scrap one of the animation project and replaced with a quick 2 days brief which I could turn around within the short time left facing the deadline. 3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?
I find that I can carry out research efficiently and quickly test out initial concepts. After making the decisions on what I set to achieve I was able to produce the final design quickly. For the science museum project I had to compromise on the final deliverable, I was set out to produce a completed animation but at the end I had to change the final to an animatic based on storyboards containing a voice over soundtrack. The script for the voice over was produced efficiently due to the script was well developed and additional planning done to sync the pace of the animated sequences. With the PhotoVoice project I produced the photos within 2 days and spent a great time making selections and experimented with layout for presenting the photo essay, because the final product required not only images but also text to communicate the message I picked the appropriatequote and wording with the consideration of typography and layout in mind. The Faber&Faber brief was the shortest project of the three, I forced myself to come up with the solution within a day and produced the final the day after. quick sketches was done to help making the best selections for the final visuals, I kept my concepts simple and used limited colour palette which simplified the designs and made them more effective.
4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these more fully? My main weakness through this module was on project and time management, I failed to follow through with the time schedule I set. Also picking unrealistic briefs and being over ambitious has cost me to loose control over my projects at the end. I ignored advices given and failed to achieve my goals which resulted having to make compromises to meet the deadline. The lack of planning and jumping too quickly to producing solutions without in-depth considerations has wasted my time and not working productively and effectively. I will address this problems by being more realistic with choosing the appropriate briefs in the future as well as taking on the advices I'm given.
5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these? - I would like to be more organised with my work flow and getting a better habit with project management, instead of producing designs straigt off from initial ideas, I would like to put them on paper before making it on screen more in the future.
- I would like to plan my projects more effiently, making a well thought out time plan before getting involved with the design process. I want to improve my skills as well as effective working habits, digital media requires well structured thought process and work flow, which I see I'm lacking of.
- I would like to be more in-depth with my development of ideas, I felt with this module I had to rush myself to produce work quickly I over looked the development stage, which I feel if I worked more in detail I could've benefited more from it.
- I would like to be more prepared for crits, I feel that I was always lacking behind with the work I needed to present. I struggled with showing my development and getting the useful feedback I required. I would like to plan ahead more with crits and try to get the most out of them in the future.
- I would like to be more efficient with time, this issue has cost me greatly over this module. I need to be more realistic with my set goals and be careful not to get over confident. I need to learn to complete work within my own sets of deadlines.
Nokia viNe is an application developed by R/GA for the phone company’s Nseries devices, all of which have GPS technology built in. The idea is simple: viNe lets people know what you’re up to and where, by geographically tagging your media consumption. For example, if you choose to record a journey using viNe, everytime you listen to an MP3, watch a video or take a photograph using your phone, viNe records the media activity and uses GPS to tag each MP3 or photo to the exact location where it was listened to or taken.
Lucinda Schreiber and Yanni Kronenberg’s charming animated music video for Firekites track, Autumn Story, which was made using white chalk, a series of blackboards and an awful lot of rubbing out…
On her Vimeo page, Schreiber explains that they “shot roughly 1900 frames… [and that] the frame rate varies between 12fps, 8fps and 6fps throughout”. The project apparently took “six months from start to finish… about four of them full-time”.
By the looks of the finished film, it was well worth the effort.
wish I could have 6 months to work on an animation...
this is how Lobo’s wonderful hand-crafted title sequence for Brazilian TV series Capitu was made
Capitu is a Brazilian TV mini-series adaptation of 19th-century novelist Machado de Assis’ work, Dom Casmurro. The story centres on an ageing man looking back on his life in an attempt to discover whether his best friend is the true father of his son, who he has raised with his wife, Capitu. De Assis’ novel is now considered one of Brazil’s most important Modernist texts and, in order to convey its radicalism, motion graphics studio Lobo looked to the Dadaist movement as inspiration for the TV show’s opening titles and interstitials. The team referenced what several avant-garde artists called ‘décollage’, a process where – rather than building up an image through layering – cutting and tearing instead reveals layers of buried images.
Credits Entrant: Lobo. Client: Globo Networks. Creative Direction: Mateus de Paula Santos and Carlos Bêla. Concept: Carlos Bêla, Roger Marmo, Mateus de Paula Santos. Design and Animation: Carlos Bêla. Assistant Animator: Rachel Moraes. Production: João Tenório. Music: Tim Rescala
Animator Mike “Beeple” Winkelmann invites you to “watch the American housing market spiral out of control” in Subprime, a stylish and slightly hypnotic animated short.
There is no CG here! This was put together the good old fashion way, with laser sights, GPS, and a land surveyor! It’s a good thing all those cars are hybrids! Directed by Erik Van Wyk.
Rupert Sanders has directed this filmic ad campaign for ITV which aims to emphasise how the brand is “synonymous with optimism”, according to David Pemsel, group marketing director at the channel. The spot, which shows sunlight bursting through a grey British beach scene, is “symbolic of ITV’s offering and wish to pierce through the nation’s doom and gloom in a beautiful and glorious way”. Whether this is quite what the channel’s programming actually achieves is of course open to debate.
As a great example of the power that music can have on the mood of a film, check out B3ta contributor Monty Propps’ chilling recreation of the opening titles to 1980s US sitcom Diff’rent Strokes, where he’s replaced the familiar jaunty song with an altogether more disturbing score…
Propps says that the new film is only “slightly edited in terms of colour and ageing filters” and that he just tweaked the new soundtrack in a couple of places to fit the titles. (The music is in fact taken from 1982 slasher flick, The Dawn That Dripped Blood). Mr Drummond’s car never looked so ominous.
1. What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?
Through this module I have developed skills in software - After Effects; Final Cut Pro; iWeb as well as organisation skills for design for digital. Other skills includes project management and story-boarding for animation. I felt I have applied these skills effectively in some areas but still need to improve in others. I think I've developed my skills further in After Effects and visualising concepts via mediums such as story-boarding, but my project managing skills still needs improving, anticipating the animation process takes time, I have given my self enough time to develop / making of the animation but falling short on the iWeb side of the project. This is the first motion graphics project for me to work collaboratively with someone else in charge of sound, it has been another learning curve for me.
2. What approaches to generating work and solutions to problems have you developed and how have they helped?
I approached this project with great enthusiasm, the subject matter interested me and acted as my drive through this project. I learned to act quickly upon ideas with animation, because the actual making process always seems to take longer than anticipated. I encountered numerous problem during the animating process, I learned to know my limits within the software and work around problems to communicate my ideas. over the length of this project I have went through many tutorials online and self taught the software skills that was needed for my animation. I picked up on how to look for information and answers regarding my design problems, I have gradually developed my own work flow methods for digital design. I found keeping digital files updated and archived is a must when it comes to working with digital media.
3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?
I find that I prefer to work with image, and especially motion graphics, I can quickly visualise my ideas to show on screen and look for effective solutions to my problems. I have learned to make decisions quickly and be more proactive with the development process, which resulted in giving myself more time for realising my visual solutions and making things happen more quickly. Being more decisive has become my strength which I have benefited from this project, I find that I had more time to experiment with the software and creating more polished final products, which I had problem to produce before.
4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these more fully? Even though I did allow myself more time by making quick decisions early on in the project, I still found myself getting lost in the software, trying to learn 'everything' has lead me to many wrong turns and distractions, where I would spend many hours experimenting elements which had little to do with my initial ideas. Experiment and expanding my skills is important but without restriction it could lead to time wasting. I may have felt that I learned a lot by doing so but it may have affected my focus on this project.
5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these? - I would like to present my project more clearly, by becoming more organised with my work flow and getting a better work habit, instead storing ideas and findings in my head, I would like to put them on paper and screen more in the future.
- I would like to be more in-depth with my development of ideas, I felt with this project I forced myself to produce work quickly I over looked the development stage, which I feel if I worked more in detail I could've benefited more from it.
- I would like to be more efficient with time, this issue with time comes up every time, but I felt my time management has been the best as it had been so far, I was able to complete work within my own sets of deadlines, but there's always room for improvements in this area.
- I would like to be more prepared for crits, I felt that I was never really ready at crits, I struggled with showing my development and getting the useful feedback I required. I would like to plan ahead more with crits and try to get the most out of them in the future.
- I would like to learn to be more organised with design for digital, as I felt this is the area in graphic design I would like to go into, I want to improve my skills as well as effective working habits, digital media requires well structured thought process and work flow, which I see can benifit me in other area of design.
Here is a good short video reviewing the art of the storyboard as it's used in story development and production in the motion picture industry. Storyboarding as we know it may have been pioneered by film makers and animators, but we can use many of the same concepts in the development of other forms of storytelling including keynote presentations or short-form presentations such as those made popular at TED. The storyboard process allows you to flush out themes and look for patterns as you apply your creativity toward presenting your content.
Storyboarding is a great way to begin to visualize the story of your content. (In animation) storyboards are used to develop the story. A great storyboard artist is a great communicator (not necessarily a great illustrator/animator). Walt Disney developed the use of storyboards in the 1920s. Storyboards allow film makers to see a blueprint of the movie before going into production. You tack them (your sketches/ideas in visual form) up on the wall so you can see the entire sequence, flow, continuity, etc. Storyboards are an effective, inexpensive way to develop the story. You can "board it up" on the wall and see if it works. Because ideas can be changed easily and quickly, storyboarding works. The key is to put down in your storyboards the minimum amount of information that gives a dynamic and quick read of the content (and the emotions) of the sequence.
A good storyboard artist is a good storyteller. The drawings do not have to be pretty, but they must have the meaning and the feelings behind the idea. A good storyboard artist is a good pitchman. Walt Disney, they say, was an amazing pitchman/storyboard artist. Walt's great ability was his passion and vision behind the pitch. The storyboard pitch is one of the great performance arts developed in the 20th century at Disney (yet no one ever gets to see it). The use of storyboards is one of the reasons Walt Disney's early films were so remarkable; the practice was soon copied.
Walt Disney: "At our studio we don't write our stories, we draw them."
With storyboarding you tell the story in the simple form (storyboard reels) before entering the more complex form. The storyboard lets the whole team in on what's going on with the production. The storyboard is "an expensive writing tool, but an inexpensive production tool." The storyboard can cut out a lot of unnecessary work. Storyboards allow you to see what is not working (and toss the bits out that don't work).
Kevin Costner: "If I can make things work on paper, then I can make them work on the set."
Director: Nick Ball. Producer: Camila Klich. Production Company: Draw Pictures. DoP: Daniel Bronks. Editor: Marek Budzynski. Grade: Kenny Gibb.
Norman Cook’s latest venture, Brighton Port Authority, has Iggy Pop providing guest vocals on the track, He’s Frank. Directed by Nick Ball at Draw Pictures, the promo for the song features a well-worn Iggy puppet, in his traditional “top off” mode. The twist is that as the track progresses Iggy begins to turn on his “bunraku” puppet masters. But what’s got Iggy so annoyed? Maybe he’s finally seen those Swiftcover ads he did not so long ago…
E4 Music idents, Production company: Mr & Mrs Smith, Director: Andy Martin, Producer: Ali Taylor, Creative director: Lisa Lloyd, Animators: Lee Cooper, Ned Miles, Andy De Vries
Production company Mr & Mrs Smith has created this series of rather fine new idents for E4 Music, which step neatly into the void recently left by the BBC3 blobs, yet come complete with a surreal twist.
Inspired by traditional Eastern European puppetry, the idents take viewers into a weird world inhabited by animal-headed creatures. The films were directed by Andy Martin and shot in deserted locations around London and Bognor Regis - we see the creatures gobbling up abandoned food, terrorising pets and hovering with strange intent above tower blogs. Alongside designing the look of the idents, Martin also composed the music, using a variety of instruments from a mellodica to a chaos-pad, which sounds very exciting, even if we’re not sure what it is.
Twee, acoustic, folksy music accompanies practically every second ad on TV at the moment. We first noticed the trend back in mid 2007 – a list of sappy offenders compiled here – but when, we ask, will it end? Joining our discussion: Dan Stevens, a director at music PR and management company, Darling Department; Parv Thind, sound designer at Wave; and Peter Raeburn, founder and creative director of music production company, Soundtree. Our first twee spot of ‘09: the new Audi Q5 ad featuring Woody Guthrie’s Car Song The ad that started the trend for twee music? Sony Balls featuring José González
Creative Review: How and why did all this folky twee music become so dominant in advertising – was it the José González track on Sony Balls that began this trend?
Dan Stevens: Ah, yes… sanitised American nowhere towns and pretty young people wearing plaid. There’s a lot of it around at the moment. These ads are totally non-threatening and cool whilst appealing to a broad range of people…. But I’m bored of it now – it’s a visual and musical cliché. It seems to have taken over from vaguely harmless electronica as the ‘in’ sound of advertising….
Peter Raeburn: Acoustic folk has always had its power and always will. It was Sony Bravia’s Balls spot which optimised and gave rise to the new wave of using pure, honest unfussy music which, actually, clients are now self-conscious about. Our ears get tired and need change, but are always comforted by hearing old friends you can trust.
Parv Thind: Yes, it does seem like the Balls ad was the first to have that folky, acoustic sound. Actually, the ad featured a combination of image and sound that together blows you away because you’d never seen or heard an advert like it. It’s really powerful and that definitely has a knock-on effect.
People saw that ad and thought, ‘what a great formula’ and when people see a formula that is clearly working it’s easy for them to say ‘let’s do something like that’. That’s the power of advertising! It has the power to start trends (and sell records). Before Balls, there was a trend for finding quirky old tracks from the 1930s that no one had ever heard of. The music that was on PlayStation Mountain is a great example. There was a Wrangler ad with Follow The Yellow Brick Road on there. It’s a trend that’s still ongoing.
John Lewis’ recent spot that reworked the Beatles (in a rather twee fashion)
CR: What other strong musical trends have there been in advertising recently and can those trends be traced back to a particular commercial?
PR: Guinness Surfer gave energy to the use of bass, the sub-sonic and the visceral: a trend in how little you need to do so much.
PT: That’s right, after Guinness Surfer came out, everyone was looking at beefy electronic music. ‘Oh, they used Leftfield, let’s get Chemical Brothers….’ After Audi Bull came out, everyone wanted rumbling basslines on their ads. Remember that Nike ad from years ago where there’s a load of Brazilian footballers showing off their skills in an airport? That ad started a trend of Brazilian music being used on sports ads….
Guinness’ classic Surfer ad. Not twee
More recently Clarks did an ad with Ace of Spades and Sony Bravia used Iron Maiden: these work because they’re so different to other ads, when they’re in isolation. The same thing happened after Street Music came out [for 1Xtra]: people were keen to make their ads really ‘street’. So people do tend to jump on things in that way. It’s a natural tendency and there’s not much we can do about it. Someone releases a hit record and it’s got a great sound, other people will replicate it. That’s how it works in music, fashion etc.
CR: Do labels actively contact you to offer tracks?
DS: Record labels do seek to get their wares heard by the people that choose music for advertising, although I would say that these days it’s happening even earlier down the food chain than ever before. You used to wait until the band was signed and had a publishing deal but now there are independent music sync companies that look to work with bands even before they’ve signed a deal with a label.
These companies have close relationships with ad agencies and music consultants. So they might come to us with a brief from an ad agency and ask us if we had any ideas. My company might be working with unsigned acts and talk to them and work with agencies direct…. If an act hasn’t signed with a record company, any money to be made can be split without a cut going to the label.
Music on an advert can, of course be a big earner. A label can, and often does, practically hold ad agencies to ransom if they want to license the use of a particular track for an advert. However, for an artist, it’s the exposure that having a track on an ad can bring that’s the real attraction.
When The Gossip’s track Standing In The Way Of Control appeared on those Skins promo films on Channel 4, it undoubtedly made the record a hit and exposed the band to a much bigger audience. That’s also what happened with Sony’s Balls ad – no one had really heard of José González before that ad so it definitely brought him to mainstream attention.
Apple’s iPod Nano ad using the song 1234 by Feist. Really quite twee
CR: Are creatives looking to stand out with their choice of soundtrack or follow a trend?
PT: It totally depends. You’ve got to remember that target audience is a crucial factor in track selection. Friendly folky stuff will appeal to mums at home so is probably a good choice for advertising washing powder. Simple as that. There’s always going to be a proportion of ads that pick up on a winning formula and use it.
And I don’t think the clients are really bothered about whether it sounds like someone else’s ad. The bottom line for them is that they want to sell their product. When it comes to things like washing powder and everyday products, the brands don’t really care about making cool ads that break new ground. The great thing about brands like Sony Bravia is that the advertising has made it cool – by being different. Honda too has become cool because of their advertising.
Notably those two brands have had great adverts over the last few years but each one is totally different stylistically – both visually and music-wise. They’re looking to create pieces of entertainment that look and sound like the next big thing. Honda’s Power of Dreams ad – that is a great piece of music. That Andy Williams track absolutely nails that film. It works lyrically with what Honda wants to say, and the sound is completely different to what was on other ads at the time.
Andy Williams’ The Impossible Dream as used on Ivan Zacharias’ Honda ad
PR: Standout is obviously something that is sought after and called for, yet needs to be balanced with longevity, standing the test of time, repeat viewing. The internet allows and forces things to last forever instantly. Good ideas and good relationships between music and picture will remain so throwaway fads die quickly in an unnecessarily disposable world. Sometimes things stand out simply because they’re the right choice.
CR: And what makes something the right choice?
PR: We shouldn’t quite be able to imagine anything else on there. The right music works on lots of levels. When all those levels come together, we get into the realm of the undeniable. When we get into the realm of the undeniable, it’s right.
CR: So will twee music disappear or at least diminish a bit in our advertising?
PT: It’s on the way out. I don’t know what’s next, but it’s definitely died a death. The general vibe from people coming in working on stuff right now is that they’re not interested in that kind of music. There are other avenues to explore and creative types are definitely aware that to make their advert stand out, they need to look to be original and make a fresh statement. So to make an ad with a similar impact to Balls, you have to come up with your own formula.
We’ll probably see folk music used less in ads from now on but then in a few years time, someone will find a beautiful piece of music that is perfect for a particular film, and you’ll have forgotten that that kind of music had been used before – it will sound fresh again.
Orange ad from 2007 featuring Devendra Banhart. Twee to the nth degree
CR: What’s the next big thing – have you heard any music that could be the next big sound to hit ads?
DS: Dubstep/grime? Some of the more esoteric stuff from these genres must work really well in an advert! Scratchy indie bollocks never really caught on (I’m talking about The Libertines onwards) and Britpop hasn’t either – although there was that Carling ad which featured a track by Hard-Fi…. Basically, in the music scene at the moment, there isn’t an overriding theme – it’s really fragmented. So really advertising should reflect that and be looking for music beyond the folky.
What that kind of music has done is talk to both the housewives and mothers as well as the young trendy folk that would be into this new kind of folk music. The problem right now is that if you’re trying to talk to a hipper audience, they’ve probably had enough of that sound and so you have to be more challenging. So the dubstep ad love-in is yet to happen!
Noticeably, there hasn’t been an injection of soul in advertising like there was when Levi’s used Ben E King’s Stand By Me and other Motown classics years ago. Those tracks were so popular that Levi’s was able to re-release the records (with its logo on the sleeves). That kind of soul music has similar appeal to the folky stuff – it’s cool, safe, non-threatening and downright catchy. So perhaps people in advertising feel that their peers will look down on them if they take that tack again – but actually the public would probably love it.
PT: It’s the impact of something new and unexpected that has the power to start a whole new trend…
