Stop Motion Animation Inspiration

As stop motion animation is something which we have been looking at using in our music video we started to do some research into different Stop Motion videos on Youtube to see what inspired us. We plan on making our own short stop motion animation video as a practice before attempting to use it in our A2 music video.

Below are some examples of stop motion animation which have inspired me:




We also looked at the work of a fellow student Rory Murphey who uses stop motion animation in his graphics work. His work was also inspiring for us to watch and has helped us to build on our ideas.

Radio 1 - Unsigned Artists

I also researched Radio 1's slots for unsigned artists to promote themselves to their listeners. Whilst looking through their playlist I found a singer called Izzy Marie Hill.

Her music fits the upbeat style we had been considering and we went on to look at her website and listen to a selection of her music.

Music Video Planning

When it comes to deciding what to do in our music videos our options are still fairly wide. We have made a few small decisions so far to guide our route. We have decided to shoot our music video with the same person who was in our Lip Sync Practice. As she is female this now limits us to songs with a female singer.

We have not yet decided what genre of music to use, however we are considering something quite upbeat and are also thinking about using some stop-motion animation within the video if we are able to. We also were aware that it would be much better to use the work of an unsigned artist as asking their permission to use their music would be much easier for us. We looked at the work of some previous students who used a singer called Beth Cawte’s music in their video, as she was unsigned she gave them permission to use her music in their video.

Myspace and Youtube act as a platform for many unsigned artists to try and promote themselves. We have started our search across both websites to see if we can find any particular artist who we feel might like to contact in order to ask permission to use their music.

Here are a couple of unsigned artists I found as an example on Youtube:

http://youtu.be/ZAJZ0FrAh60

Post-It Note Film

We made a post-it note film to describe the process of creating our product and the things which we had to consider in order to do so.

Lip Sync Task

Here is my finished lip sync practise. I am very happy with how it has turned out and the experience I gained through creating the lip syncing and using the different shot types have been incredibly useful to me.

Practice Task- Planning

For our lip syncing practice we have chosen to copy the first minute of Taylor Swift's song 'We are never ever getting back together'

We began by drawing up a storyboard of each shot we were going to use, trying to keep it as similar as we could to the real video.

After the storyboard we sorted out what props we would need and our filming location. Once we had done this we prepared for our actual filming process. We did this by taking photographs of shots we intended to use in our video.

How has research and planning helped you to create successful media products?

How has research and planning helped you to create successful media products?

To make my media product a success and build it from the ground up I was heavily reliant on my research and planning processes. I began with researching as I needed to gain a simple knowledge of first, common filming conventions and then begin to settle upon an idea which I liked and work out how to film it to make it a reality.

     I began by simply researching how film openings were constructed, after watching the openings of a fair variety of genres such as chick flicks, comedies, horrors and dramas I realised that the common conventions of each varied greatly. After settling upon my chosen genre ‘Drama’ I began to focus on watching openings of iconic drama films. From recent films such as ‘Public Enemies’ (2009), to classics such as ‘The Godfather’ (1972). After finding common trends of this genre I posted the findings onto my blog along with screenshots of the first ten frames, analysing each.

     The internet was a huge help for me within my research phase. I used Youtube a great deal to continue my research, watching the work of previous students to see what somebody without professional crews was typically capable of. This was extremely helpful as it gave me a more realistic idea of my expectations.

     The Internet Movie Database was also very helpful when it came to cross-referencing films and measuring their success. This allowed me to see how Drama films were received out in the world and compare their success to the success of other genres. The internet also helped me to find royalty free music to use in my project to avoid copyright issues. The website RoyaltyFreeMusic.com allowed me to do just this, providing me with the scores for my film opening. Despite finding music on this website I had also looked on Youtube for older music where the copyright had expired as well as amateur musicians who had no copyright to their music. I did get into contact with a few who did give me permission to use their music if I so wished.

     The use of Social Networking sites was also very useful to me. As I wanted to keep my project and researching topics up-to-date and current with the trends of society I was able to measure my audience’s expectations through the use of sites such as Twitter and Facebook. By using these sites I was able to measure the level of interest for my genre of film and see what my expected audience would be.

     My blog was absolutely essential for planning and organising my findings through research. It allowed me to organise all of my findings. My blog shows the development and progress of my ideas throughout. I have been able to organise every single though, development and finding on my blog from my first decision and storyline to the finished storyboard, shot list and script.

Without my research and planning my project would never have come into existence. The use of the internet helped me to piece the ideas of my project together and find my soundtrack. My blog and the organisation was also the core of what helped my project become successful as I was able to record and document each step of my production on it.