Another commission for a music video.
I posted this on the Moho Animators Forum but not here.
Very simple this time, more like 'motion pictures'
I'd love to get a good budget and some music I really like one day.
Make of it what you will and even if you hate it, give uncle Chucky a 'like' anyway eh?
"Very simple", indeed! That's the understatement of the year!
I've rarely seen any video made in this fashion being so atmospheric, not boring, well drawn, and overall appealing. It helps that it's black&white (the circus topic irks me). Lots of bitmaps, right? Where did you paint them? Paper, software?
Great use of lighting effects just to keep things interesting. Good choice of camera movement, basically just a continuous track in. There's depth in each image, and at least one little movement in each. (Well, the music ...) I'd like to see the storyboard for this.
This is something to learn from.
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The shot with the dancer grabbed my attention as well but I'm more fond of the whole scene (from the guy with the whip to Atlas), or at least I perceived that as a scene.
But, to be frank, even by the watch and reflections on the beginning you already had me. Among the details and apart from magnificent handling of lights and atmospherics (dust around the acrobat, blingy dress...) - cats and the lion tamer, falling tickets and rhythm of the ending scene. Though falling tickets deserve another shout - a very very nice additional 'detail'.
Drawings, designs, style, camera... exquisitely 'simple' as well
Wow , I can't say how great for me it was to hear these sincere reactions.
Thank you so much.
Maestral anything you read in is absolutely welcome, the references were meant to be open to interpretation with murky references to all sorts of beliefs, dogmas and traditions and their relationship to theatre and storytelling .
Also exploitation of such material and an audiences willingness to be manipulated.
It's also of course a bunch of partially decipherable and hopefully intriguing images, to hopefully compel the current audient to stick around for the next verse.
Lukas, yes the spotlight was fun, I've wanted to do that trick many times before.
Slowtiger, yes the music and the Circus topic were the two criteria I was bound to,
After couple of a few mood scribbles and a sleep I realised going waaaay darker than expected in tone worked best for the music, it so easily could have fallen into the 'careless whispers' category when the topic seemed so serious in the lyrics.
I normally board in Toon Boom, but it's always been horribly unstable and the most sensitive to changes to the computer environment than any other software I've used.
This time it totally failed and so did support, unless I paid toon boom money I just can't afford ( I think all the now orphaned TV storyboards that I now can never open again, grrrr). In contrast ancient copies of Moho and many other apps run perfectly still.
So I used wonderunit's Storyboarder which has no camera animation in it yet but it lets you edit layered files in many apps, which works great, so I used Clip to edit the board images.
I also used Clip Studio for all the artwork.
I do like to make a couple at least new brushes for new projects to give them a slightly different look to the last, the push in trick meant I had to go as big as I could.
I'm glad you noticed the continuous track in Slowtiger, I used that technique not just to keep the still images alive and deep but as a device that echoes the idea of being drawn in , like one is drawn into a story or a ruse/confidence trick....
That anticipation like entering a mysterious space, or the trip up a rollercoaster; receptive and ready for the payoff you feel you've been promised (which leads back to the concept of carnival and/or tents for worship, sideshows, theatre etc).
I gave it a like on YT. In my view I think the animation will clearly generate more interest than the music. I saw your trademark blue banana peel at the end.
Wow,
Really nicely done. Dark with just enough of a light touch as to not be too disturbing, but intriguing instead. Holds your attention from start to finish
That was the challenge, to keep the audience watching.
I am very happy that you stayed to whole way through, liking it is a super bonus.
Thanks so much.
The music didn't especially grab me, so I was on the precipice of exiting the video throughout, but I continued watching to the end because of the narrative and animation. Good job!
Thanks Daxel and Hoptoad, I couldn't wish for better responses
I tried to drag the music to a deeper darker place with the images to bring out its inner gravitas , nothing wrong with a bit of juxtaposition, to make a story more compelling.
It's a trick I've noticed horror films use, by putting cheerful music next to the scary pictures to create that uneasy tension.
It was a challenging undertaking, hats of to the musos who allowed me to go there rather than being more traditionally palatable.
Thankfully they were very happy.
