I have looked into what working at 8fps will look like and here are some videos which I found that use a frame rate of 8fps. I have decided that I will produce my animation at this frame rate.
four the pitch we had to produce an animatic for the project so that the final project would be visualised. my animation is quite complicated so instead of making the animatic out of the full colour storyboard I made it from the rought thumbnails I'd drawn out. the result of this was that you get to see the camera movement clearer. below is the animatic which I pitched to the class,
the feadback I got from the pitch was that the soundtrack was not working as the begining of it sounds slightly as if it is irish and you dont get the african connection until 1/2 way though the music. they did like the song however so I should just choose a diffrent section of the piece.
they also thought that I should have the tree on the savanah in just one the scenes so as to aviode confusion that the scenes where the same location and so that the tree its self is more intresting.
I was advised that this is going to take a lot of work to finish & that I should be working at a frame rate of about 8fps as that would give me a nice balance between smooth motion and less drawing to do.
I did receve some negative critisium for not creating full quality mockups for the animation. however I think that my final art style is going to be very similar to my story boards which I produced so hopefully this should not matter when its finished. though if I were to be giving a pitch to a real client I need to make sure that I do everything possiable to help them visualise the final outcome.
the feadback I got from the pitch was that the soundtrack was not working as the begining of it sounds slightly as if it is irish and you dont get the african connection until 1/2 way though the music. they did like the song however so I should just choose a diffrent section of the piece.
they also thought that I should have the tree on the savanah in just one the scenes so as to aviode confusion that the scenes where the same location and so that the tree its self is more intresting.
I was advised that this is going to take a lot of work to finish & that I should be working at a frame rate of about 8fps as that would give me a nice balance between smooth motion and less drawing to do.
I did receve some negative critisium for not creating full quality mockups for the animation. however I think that my final art style is going to be very similar to my story boards which I produced so hopefully this should not matter when its finished. though if I were to be giving a pitch to a real client I need to make sure that I do everything possiable to help them visualise the final outcome.
I am currently thinking up idea for my advert and thinking how the whole piece will fit together. in looking for more inspiration I just goggled South African textiles. thought I have to be careful because South Africa is a vast country and some of these textiles may not relate to the Limpopo region (just like Scottish tartans) and its just a Google search so there is no guarantee these are infact all South African. I think the colour and rough styling elements are good inspiration.
I have been to the Advertising Standards Agency website and found the rules for Alcoholic adverts. It is important that I comply to these codes as other wise my advert would be un-broadcastable in the real world.
I have chosen the section of the song which I want to use so now I can go through it and find the key parts in the music which I can animate things around. I have chosen to take it from 14seconds through to 44 seconds, This section has a nice variation of sounds and a good constant sound.
the song starts 5 seconds in so if you want to find the following times in the video you need to add 5seconds to the stated time.
Key Sounds
I'm going to pull out the key sounds and beats to animate to:
0-2s four drum beats as the song builds up. 1s accordion? (not sure what instrument it is) starts
2s the beat starts
2-15s beat continues with 4 beats taking just under 2seconds. 12s faint bongo (again not sure on the instrument) start.
15s vocals start
17.5s backing vocals start. then from 21seconds and every 4 seconds after they repeat.
22.5s second line of vocals start.
29.5s backing vocals seam to reduce in volume good time for me to fade out.
this gives me 2 main parts of music which suggests to me that I should have two events styles or view points throughout the animation.
I have been trying to think about where I need a voice over as the end of this song has vocals in it. The vocals are sung in the Xhosa and Shona languages so I think its fine if I have speaking over them as my advert is for a western audience who will not understand the vocal in the background.
This advert by Jack Daniel's makes good use of text to not affect the association you get of the bull riding mentality.
I said a couple of posts ago that I needed to look into the brand in more detail, this video is produced by Amarula and is there brand video showcasing what they want to be represented as. I think it provides a good basis for me to understand the exact message which they are trying to get across.
Kwaito is a music genre where was formed in the late 90's in Johannesburg. It is a combination of house music and traditional african sounds with a slow tempo (source). though Johannesburg is in the Gauteng province I think it is a style which is alright to use as it will be popular throughout South Africa.
I think that this genere is just the style which I was looking for. Thandiswa is a female artist who's records are in this style and currently I think that her song Lahlumlenze would be great for my advert, it reminds me a lot of Paul Simon Graceland. I think the Lyrics are really great as well, they are translated as (according to a youtube comment by the uploader),
Whose business is it if I dance, I am proud, take such pride in you Africa, we live through music, yes we live through song, wherever, however, Africans live through song, so whose business is it, whose business is it if I dance.
here is the song,
currently I'm not sure what section to use. I like the beginning section and how it builds up, I think that would allow me to do some nice things with m animation. When the singing kicks in though i think it sounds great and that happens at 30seconds so I want to start a few seconds in. My choice at the moment is between starting at 10 or 15 seconds.
I have been looking into South African poets to try find a verse which I could use as the soundtrack for the advert. So far I have only been able to find two, the first Emmanuel Sairosi's poems are full of anger and negative messages about Limpopo and and there for really not suitable for an uplifting campaign about a product produced in the province. here is a sample of his work
soon the truth becomes apparent
turning back would be out of question
behold ahead lies the battle point
Limpopo
To tell you is to taint you
with all due respects to the parents
those who have lost their children
to lands beyond and afar
Only when you visit the Limpopo
only then can you understand
why your sons and daughters chose that path
Only then can you clearly decipher
the world in the manner
your children rightfully interpreted
It is indeed not just a conventional frequently told myth
The Limpopo has robbed the world
of the thousands of the future leaders
sons and daughters have perished
lured by the treacherous symphonic waters
of this barbaric river
Limpopo smells blood
Limpopo smells victory
Limpopo a two faced conniving brute
Were you not supposed to be the epitome
of that life that we so deeply yearned for?
Limpopo you have ruptured the veins
of hope entrenched in my utopian world
Undeterred exhibiting fearful braggadocio
Limpopo glides like a serpent
squaring up and ready to devour
an unsuspecting karoo lamb.
The seconds poet that i found is Ntshima Ramokone although she dose have some nice works i can not find a piece which fits the brand. here is a sample of her work,
I thought it will not come
As all the hope was gone
But God proofed me wrong
A place with great light of Life
A place of joy and Glory
Which rubs the word love inside me more than sorry
As is the one being chased by it, no attention to him
No, more crying of tears from the eyes of the afflicted me
As it just came with the miraculous surprise
With the joy of tears just fearing the soul of my heart
Which made me feel more human than ever before
Regenerating the great ambitions of my dreams
The one’s who thought they were dead
Now they had resurrected from the unforeseen death
Which turned into the everlasting living unstoppable dreams
Brought confusion towards the wicked ones
Right down from the deepest of the blue ocean
Which never let it go
The place full of life
The place full of peace
The place without storms
But booms with wonders
Which are incredible to me
I never thought it was me again
As I was just a born again
Under my Lord’s shade
I have looked again at existing Amarula advertising and have found that the idea which i was thinking of has already been done only without the animation style.
I want my piece to be original so I think that I will stay away from the ambiguous prose being the soundtrack for the animation. There are a few alternatives which I could use, one of these is the Amarula song which is a song about the Amarula liqueur that's wildly known in southern Africa. here is a clip of some girls singing it (it starts at 42seconds but it should auto play from that point).
The problem with using this song is there there is not a full quality recording of it any where I can find so im going to have to steal the audio from one of the amateur performances of the piece from youtube. doing so will give me background noise and imperfections which may look good or may end up making my piece look unprofessional.
Another option i have for the sound is to find a piece of local african music which would fit the advert and use that. at the moment I'm thinking that that would be the most realistic idea for my project.
I have some starting point here as Amarula sponsor the Channel O music awards. The website mentions artists such as Darey Art Alade, Gal Level and Buffalo Souljah for winning 2 wards each in the 09 awards.
Here is a song by Darey Art Alade who was named the best male at the event. I really like the piano from this song but I can not find an instrumental version of it any where so I'm not sure if it would work with the voice over the top.
Here is a high energy song by Gal Level. From what I'm picturing my advert to look like this video style of music is to fast paced for the mood.
the same is true for Buffalo Souljah as Gal Level but here is a sample of there music so you can judge for yourself
I have just taken some time to look at the music made by all the artists in the 2010 Channel O awards and i could not find anything which was fitting they where mostly like the Gal Level and Buffalo Soulja music.
i feel like the Darey Art Alade is to sound to much like pop music to fit what im trying to go for. What i need is a more traditional african piece with a slow tempo.
In the brief it says "You will design your advertising campaign by matching it to a cultural focus which suits your choice of drink brand, and a set of values suitable to your company. You will use the imagery you devise to create interesting and imaginative visuals that bring thebranded identity to life. You will choose a piece of music to work with which corresponds to the visual theme which you can animate your piece to."
I have put what I consider to be the key words in Bold. I have a few idea on outcome and design practice to help me realise this part of the brief.
Currently what i am thinking is to create an abstract animation using the styles of several of the artists and tribal styles to create an interesting set of visuals which will align the brand with the creative culture of South Africa. This animation will be set against poetry or a verse from a story or fable with an ambiguous meaning, that can be linked to either the culture of the product.
Although I need to do a greater analysis of my target audience, which I will do as part of the above post, currently I'm thinking the advert should be aimed at upper middle class western creative classes. The aim being to create social talking points and raise the profile of the product. If this where a full marketing campaign I would be looking at sponsoring local artist to produce works for events in London, New York, etc. establishing cultural and artistic connotations for the product. the Idea would be something similar to how Becks beer aligned themselves with Music and anti racism.
I already have an idea about the styling although I will need more to draw inspiration from. What I need to sort out is the soundtrack for the piece. so I need to look at poets and stories from the region. Also in order to do this properly I should have it read by someone with a South African accent, this is going to be the hardest part it think as I only know one person from South Africa. What I can do is try find a recording of my chosen literature online or failing that I will have to get a friend to do a South African accent which wont be great.
I am still looking for a creative movement or artistic style to draw inspiration from but I thought I would restrict the search area, the whole of southern Africa is a massive place after all.
Kruger National Park is in Limpopo, it is considered to be one of the most impressive game parks in Africa. I think having the savannah style of this national park in my advert would be good. here is a very popular video of animals near a watering hole in Kruger National Park
I have found a tribe which has a very strong graphical style to there decoration and fashion. the Ndebele tribe live around the Limpopo and while I do not know if they would gather marula fruit I do not think that matters because I'm trying to tie the product in with local South African culture.
A quick note, I think that it would be fitting to use several styles in my piece as South Africa has a vast amount of religions, cultures and ethnic groups.
The Ndebele decorate there houses with bold geometric patters which have a while background and strong blocks of colour and strong black lines. The painting and the design of the houses is left for the women and represents identity, values, emotions and personal expression but they never show religion and ritual.
Samson Mudzunga is a South African artist who lives and works in Limpopo. he creates massive versions of drums. "In the forms and imagery of these drums Mudzunga incorporates symbolism from the mythology and traditional customs of the Limpopo people to both explore these customs and question issues of power, in particular the power relationships existing within his own community." some of his latest work can be seen here.
Avhashoni Maingane is another artist from Limpopo his work is "linked to the dominant matriarchal presence in many black cultures". he tries to create awareness and education for arts in Limpopo.
I like the style of this last image and I think I could use something similar for representing the savannah landscape of the Kruger national park which I mentioned earlier.
I have just noticed that there are differences between the websites based on what location you choose that you live in. I will look at the key differences between the UK, USA and South African ones in another blog post.
Having done a little amount of research into the word Bantu i have found that it is a term which refers to similar languages spoken in central africa. it's literal meaning is 'people'. it covers many different ethnic groups and countries. I have also found out that it has offensive connotations as it was used during the Apartheid, clearly i do not want my advert to be aligned with this event so i will not be referring to the term in my advert and i will find a more specific cultural group to follow.
the Hadza people are a small group hunter gathers from northern central Tanzania they seem like a very intresting group of people but i am pretty certain that they dont gather marula fruit for Amarula. they do however gather the fruit and seeds as described by Frank W. Marlowe and Julia C. Berbesque,
the Hadza people are a small group hunter gathers from northern central Tanzania they seem like a very intresting group of people but i am pretty certain that they dont gather marula fruit for Amarula. they do however gather the fruit and seeds as described by Frank W. Marlowe and Julia C. Berbesque,
To be able to show the relationship between foods across all four regions of Hadzaland, we have ignored one important food, the marula fruit, which is available only in Dunduiya, the region to the West of Lake Eyasi (with the exception of a tiny bit of Mangola). In Dun- duiya, the baboons eat the fruit before it even gets fully ripe to preempt the Hadza. They then pass the large seeds on top of large rocks where they sleep. The Hadza go and collect these seeds after they have dried and then pound them open with hammerstones.
Amarula is produced using the fruit from the Marula tree because of this i have looked up (on wikipidia) more about the plant to find where it grows and hopefully give me some idea cultural groups or art movements which I can align myself with.
The Marula (Sclerocarya birrea) (Greek σκληρός skleros hard, καρυά karya walnut in reference to the stone inside the fleshy drupe) is a medium-sized dioecious tree, indigenous to the miombo woodlands of Southern Africa and the Sudano-Sahelian range of West Africa. The tree is a single stemmed tree with a wide spreading crown. It is characterised by a grey mottled bark. The tree grows up to 18m tall mostly in low altitudes and open woodlands. The fruits are used in the liqueur Amarula. The distribution of this species throughout Africa has followed the Bantuin their migrations, as it has been an important item in their diet since time immemorial.
the wikipedia page for Miombo Woodland shows that they are located in the following 4 major places
- Angolan Miombo woodlands (Angola)
- Central Zambezian Miombo woodlands (Angola, Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia)
- Eastern Miombo woodlands (Mozambique, Tanzania)
- Southern Miombo woodlands (Malawi, Mozambique, southern Zambia, Zimbabwe)
I will look at art and culture from the above location as well as the Bantu people. I also want to look up folk stories and legends from these countries to see if there is anything which could inspire my advert.
I have chosen the product which i want to produce an advert for, the product is the African cream liqueur Armarula. I chose this product after talking to my tutor for a while about the idea which I had for what i could possibly produce and considering the time which i have left my self to produce this project I am reluctant to do something such as Hendricks gin which im not sure if i will be able to realise a good response to the brief.
In order to create a piece that is genuin im going to do visual research into cultural art movements in southern Africa where the product is produced.
I am really concious of how late in the project its getting and I really have to choose a brand so I can actually start developing.
I went to Sainsbury's last night and spent some time in the Spirits section looking at the bottles seeing if anything jumped out at me. I was expecting that there one be one bottle that I would see and think would be perfect, but there was nothing that I felt was really great. There where however several product which I felt I could probably do something with. those brands where,
- Monkey Shoulder
- Yamazaki
- Jagamister
- Amarula
- Sheridan
- Taylors
- Black Grouse
- Blackfriars dry gin
- Gabriel Boudier
- Beefeater
- Hendricks gin
- Highland Park
I'm going to take a look at each of these brands and look at some of the existing advertising for them and them hopefully pick one of them to produce my advert on.
this bottle stood out to me because of its very traditional bottle shape and pirate styling. I also liked the embossed metal monkeys on the shoulder of the bottle.
looking at there website they have a strong brand identity. they use bamboo and jungles a lot alongside monkeys. from the looks of there website the product is aimed at males probably 30-40 years of age. I say this from the cult styling on some of the monkeys and the language used in there descriptions of the product.
this could be quite a good product to animate for as they already use lots of silhouette and vector images. their aged styling on certain elements of the brand would also fit the handmade brief. the website also comes with a sound track which I could used to inspire the music which I will use for the project.
when I saw the packaging for Yamazaki Single Malt Whisky I liked its simplicity and felt that I could make a good animation on traditional Japanese craft and values. it is a very quiet brand and reminds me lots of The Japanese Tea Ceremony. the website uses lots of textures and is very small and understated.
(click image for a large version)
At first I did not like the Jagermeister bottle as I felt it was to clinical and was not sure what I could do with it. but it is a strong brand and there is a lot of potential for different styles with this product and it would give me a lot of freedom. the brand is also aligned with party lifestyle and live music which would give me good inspiration for music and styling.
there website is an animated flash website which has some great sinister location for the pages and a good styling. the stag in the logo is based off the legend of Saint Hubertus who while hunting was converted when he saw an image of the crucifix between at stags antlers, this would be quite a cool think to animate or to base an animation off.
here is an existing advert which uses live events and gives a sense of exclusivity.
when I saw this bottle I really liked the elephant which is on the bottle and its another product that I think would work well for the style of advert which the brief is asking for. the website makes strong use of it being a traditional African product but it is presented in the form of colonial rule in Africa.
The website makes heavy use imagery of elephants and African savannah. there is a clear brand identity that included music and stories which I could use for inspiration. I think the colours that I could use for this product would be great in an animated advert.
here are some TV adverts which show how they currently represent the brand.
Sheridan
what I liked about this product was clearly the two colours of liqueur in the bottle which got me thinking that I could do some form of clever two tone animation.
when I looked for adverts and a website I could not find anything. I think that having the resources that the websites make available will be invaluable when it comes to picking apart the product and generating an idea. so for that reason I will take Sheridan's off my list of possible product.
the elegant and simple bottle caught my attention here. to me the product just looks like its full of quality and richness.
The website promotes Taylors as a prestigious and quality brand calling it's site "The home of port" which is probably quite a justified statement. the port comes from the very place where post was created and dates back 300 years to when port was first made. this kind of heritage would be great to show in an advert. the strength of the product means that they do not need to use conventional advertising. this means if I where to create an advert for this product I could make something unusual and out of the box that would be meant to be a talking point rather than a hard sell extrovert commercial.
what drew me to this product was not the bottle its self but the brand. This is the 'cousin' of the well know Scottish whisky The Famous Grouse who have some great simple television adverts. i think it would be fun to subvert these adverts for this product, this has already been done by the company though
the website show a dark Scottish landscape with a thunder storm above giving it a moody feeling which would be good inspiration for my advert.
Blackfriars dry gin
This bottle caught my eye because of the typefaces that it uses. I was thinking that this would allow me to create something in a different style to what I normally produce. what I did not notice however, which shows how good the packaging is, is that this is a Sainsbury's own brand product in the Taste the Difference range. This means that this would probably not get any stand alone advertising and would probably be difficult to create a realistic response for this product.
The incredibly label of this bottle and the deep colour of the liqueur inside is what caught my eye in this product. there is a great colour pallet and shapes which I could use in my advert if I choose this product. the label is the same original label which was creating in 1874.
Gabriel Boudier is not actually the product name, like I thought, it is the brand name. the product is called Creme De Cassis De Dijon. It took me a while to find out but the product is Blackcurrant liqueur.
the website promotes a traditional quality product and range of essential bartender items. mixing the various liqueurs seem a key part of the brand as that is what most of the products are used for, this would allow me to create an animation centred around luxury food & drinks and making the liqueur a key part of that. history is a strong part of the brand identity, the awards page of the website displays awards which the company won as far back as 1883.
This is another bottle which caught my attention because of the strong traditions associated with it. I think there is a lot here for me to work with to produce an animation for the handmade brief.
The website currently has a paper collage style which would work well with the handmade brief. it has quite a clean appearance with strong use of subtle shadows and textures. the site promotes gin as a young trendy drink to and the home page focuses on enjoying beefeater gin within London. the site has a section on history but it is brief and gives the impression of the company changing hands lots .
you can see from the video below, a promotion video made to be displayed during live events for Beefeater's Londonize advertising campaign, that Beefeater is clearly aiming at that young target audience
The shape and black colour of this bottle are what caught my eye in the super market. i also like the strong typography and the sparse use of words.
there website is great. they have a really strong visual style and brand identity. the styling reminds me of Monty Python by Terry Gilliam. the website is full of little animations and odd creations. the brand is very playful its its appearance but the when it talks about its product it is worded with in an information and prideful manner for the unique aspects used in its production. These USP's would give me something good to sell in an advert. I also think the styling is great for an advert and I could make something very different to what I would normally make. The website comes with music but it more like bar sounds than any particular song, however the style of music that is there and the music I have seen in there promotional videos is very popular to remix at the moment, see here. they have a strong presence in the uk festival scene to promote there brands making things such as the 'Horseless carriage'
here is a poster that shows how there styling looks,
is the brand which my tutor suggested. the typography that we talked about I think is great having seen it for myself.
The website puts a strong focus on traditions and the heritage. it talks about its product as "The best spirit in the world". the styling of the website borrows lots from traditional Celtic style and colours which I could use for inspiration for my advert. the use of different typefaces is not replicated on the website and I feel the website was created separately from the branding as it dose not give off the same elegant and trust worth brand image.
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