Idea

Name	Morgan Nelson
Project Title	Final Major Prodject	Unit No	8
Section 1: Rationale/Review (Level 2 approx 50 words, Level 3 approx 100 words)
During the course I have produced four major works, two of which were live action cinematography, one of which was purely audio based, and one of which was interactive. What I have learned the most is editing as that has been a major part of the first 3 different projects, and thus I want to heavily include that in this. I have also learned a lot about cinematography and mise-en-scene and wish to include that a lot, specifically the use of the camera and how it shows the subject. I also want to use my knowledge of the effect pf locations more.
Section 2: Project Concept (Level 2 approx 100 words, Level 3 approx 200 words)
The concept I have is a full music video of the song "ECHO" made by the digital artist Crusher-P using the Gumi English soundbank. Because it is a virtually created song it has a robotic feel that I wish to use for inspiration. I want to make the video following a robot struggling with its existence and newfound emotion while walking though some kind of dark and broken scene of some kind. I'll either use myself or someone else on the course as the main subject, and will feature a variety of scenes along with hand made and owned props.
Section 3: Evaluation (Level 2 approx 50 words, Level 3 approx 50 words)
All progression of the concept will be documented on Blogger in various pages, showing the ongoing change of the product as it’s made. This will be accompanied by a page for post evaluation where I will analyses all of the documented changes individually and how effective they were.
Proposed Research Sources and Bibliography (Harvard Format)
Bibliography Crusher-P. (2014, October 7th). 【VOCALOID Original】ECHO【Gumi English】. Retrieved from YouTube: https://youtu.be/cQKGUgOfD8U Various. (2019, April 25th). Megpoid English. Retrieved from Vocaloid fandom wiki: https://vocaloid.fandom.com/wiki/Megpoid_English Yamada, K. (2017, Febuary 27th). Thoughts on Convergence and Divergence in Vocaloid Culture (and Beyond). Retrieved from ethnomusicology review: https://ethnomusicologyreview.ucla.edu/content/thoughts-convergence-and-divergence-vocaloid-culture-and-beyond

Project Action Plan and Timetable
Week	Date Week Beginning	Activity / What you are intending to do - including independent study	Resources / What you will need to do it - including access to workshops
1	22/4/19	Finish new Proposal, create new idea generation section.	Word, Blogger, Internet.
2	29/4/19	Begin research into Vocaloid and its audience as well as how to make the TV head, making physical and digital props.	Internet, Word, Blogger, Craft materials (cardboard, glue, green paper, grey/white paper or paint), Photoshop.
3	6/5/19	Scripting and story boarding, pre-production, making physical and digital props.	Craft materials (cardboard, glue, green paper, grey/white paper or paint), Photoshop, Internet, Word, Blogger, Storyboards, Pre-Production documents.
4	13/5/19	Record main scenes, Record face.	Camera, Legs, Lights, SD card.
5	20/5/19	Edit together, add effects and digital props.	Photoshop, Premier Pro.
6	27/5/19	Final cut edits, Upload.	Photoshop, Premier Pro, Blogger, Internet.
7	3/6/19	Evaluation.	Word, Blogger, Internet.
8	10/6/19	Evaluation.	Word, Blogger, Internet.

Timetable Reflection

The main thought process I had when crating the timetable was to allow time to do everything, not rushing anything and being more realistic with my speed of work. Along with this it gives some weeks to spare in case I'm slower than initially anticipated or outside sources cause delays. Despite this I should make my best effort to stay on time, else I start leaking into other sections and casing delays all around. I also know myself and if I do slip I'll fond it hard to recover, be it my fault or not.

Overall I feel it should be pretty effective for me as it takes into account my flaws of procrastination and putting things off along with being easily distracted ans subconsciously justifying the delays and procrastination without following though with any of my plans to recover them. Hopefully it will relieve a lot of the stress I normally have and allow me to finish on time.

Decision Change Notes

Before choosing to do a music video I had originally decided on doing a 3D animated trailer using blender, which was picked between that, the music video, and a podcast of some description. I had decided against the podcast because it didn't lend itself to showing skills and techniques to be graded on, and has minimal effort to make it. My original plan when picking the trailer was to base it off a written story I personally enjoy and frame it as an animated adaptation. Using blender, I was going to puppeteer preexisting models to create the trailer. Unfortunately Justin said I was only allowed to make my own models and assets, not use other free ones. This meant I would have to do a lot more work than I was initially anticipating. After a few weeks into the project I decided to change it, else I would still be model making on the last week. I chose a music video over a podcast as it seemed relatively simple but still had a lot of room to be able to show skills. In general it was very flexible and I could easily make it my own while showing off skills rather easily.

Song Decision Process

5 usable songs:

- Can’t go to hell (Sin Shake Sin)
                https://youtu.be/R2ct_Gkq-HQ

- Duolingo song (CG5)
                https://youtu.be/zajaOfv0tGU?list=RDMM938jRi_SErI

- Echo [Gumi English] (Crusher-P)
                https://youtu.be/cQKGUgOfD8U

- Your reality (Team Salvato)
                https://youtu.be/CAL4WMpBNs0

- Country roads (John Denver)
                https://youtu.be/1vrEljMfXYo

Narrowing down to 3:

- Can’t go to hell (Sin Shake Sin)
↑ it has a good beat, catchy
↑ interesting topic (optimistic nihilism)
↑ happy beat
↓ possibly too fast (2^nd version shown)
↓ less popular genre
↓ less directions to go

- Duolingo song (CG5)
↑ popular theme (memes)
↑ very catchy tune
↑ PATD feel, inspiration
↑ catchy lyrics
↑ good progression
↓ little dark
↓ obscure if unaware of current internet culture

- Echo [Gumi English] (Crusher-P)
↑ catchy tune
↑ interesting theme (duality/finding yourself/confusion)
↑ robotic feel
↑ well known online
↑ good build up
↓ outside of online, not well known
↓ little dark

 Narrow to 1:

Echo [Gumi English] (Crusher-P)

I chose this song because it’s unique, has a particular style, and is rather catchy and I genuinely enjoy it. Its uniqueness gives interesting opportunities for the scenes to be recorded, such as the stuttering and robotic voice lending itself to more meta decisions along with a possible base work for the character. At the same time, it has a very particular style to it which gives more of a direction along with the lyrics, for instance the original lyric video uses black and white a lot and has the theme of colour and the absence of it. Finally, its one I like a lot, am familiar with, and is catchy and well known on the internet. 

Video Idea Mindmap

 

I created the mindmap to help visualise and come up with ideas to use in the video itself.

The above section focused on how I could visualise the Robot and AI aesthetics that both Echo and Vocaloid in general brought to the table. The main bits I aim to use is Hatsune Mike as a focus of research due to her popularity along with sparks to show the main subject as a robot in the final product. However due to limited time, resources, and space I wont be using the ideas of the subject wandering or the location being a ruined area. I also think this is a better creative choice as while a ruined building or the character walking around visually relates to the song well, its a more abstract interpretation of the lyrics and also limits my control in editing.

This section is regarding the ideas generated when me and Jack talked about it and what he thought would work well, specifically a dance or a rave. Out of everything in the mindmap, here I aim to certainly use the Studio and Lights heavily in filming along with flashing as a feature in the edited version. On the other hand I don't actively want to make this feel like a rave and will stray away from strobe continuous strobe effects in favour of a more robotic and glitching aesthetic that fits the song and its lyrics better, casing me to lean more on the lyrics rather than mostly forgetting them.

This part specifically looked into inspiration from various fan animations created with this soundtrack. The ideas of putting a face on a TV screen really stood out to me as it presents an interesting way to get the lyrics across, something Justin wishes to be shown though lip syncing in some way. While I also had ideas relating to the person sitting still in a chair like many other animations do, I feel this would be a waste of my medium as that is clearly done more to make animation simple for the creators of those videos rather than for a stylistic choice. Also similarly I feel it wouldn't work all too well if I leaned into the fandom side of this, particularly where the animations normally have characters from other fandoms as the main subject and focus. This is because my music video would then loose its own focus of the vocaloid depiction here. I will however lean heavily on the Vocaloid fandom for the purposes of research and looking into the target audience.

The final major section looks at the original lyric video, which is mostly a static image with text on it and some effects. I wished to take on the character depicted as much as possible, using props and costume to imitate the original. While I would like to take on the 6 armed appearance I feel it likely would not work without either putting a lot of strain on editing or only working in a still image. For this reason this idea is more in the background, as while I possibly could use it I doubt it would completely work. In respect to the Text and Lyrics on the TV, I would rather avoid it, Instead focusing on putting lip syncing and graphics onto the TV. However I feel like it would work as a kind of credits sequence. Finally, in regards to including static, I feel like it would work well in combination with other things to make the whole thing seem more robotic, enhancing the Mise-en-scene.

These two captures refer to some of the more miscellaneous ideas. The first of the two show more of the ideas I had on the way to create this, looking into both live action and animated graphics, and how that would then translate into the kind of props I might need to create. I wish to use both, using Photoshop to create the digital props and graphics while hand making the physical ones I mentioned before. The second shows a few of the earlier ideas before I split it into multiple lager sections, looking into making the Uniform and weather that was possible as well as the inclusion of static and glitching to heavily emphasise the robotic and artificial concept of the original.