LAUAN501 - Study Task 9

Evaluation

For my project I intended to create a video essay that would illustrate my points, findings and research. My first Idea was to create video essay in the style of a music video, where I would include a short animation accompanied by music to visually compare how animation can improve a musical piece. However, I discovered that it might take too long to combine a short ‘music’ video along with a video essay in the style of a music video. Instead, I have approached it in a different way, after researching the 1980's era of MTV and how they advertised and how creatively they used animation for their title cards.

I began by researching and looking at many different music videos, both animated and live action, and gathered clips of them for my eventual video. After this I began researching on various different articles and some interviews to give some context and to show how animation has been used in music videos.

After enough secondary research, I created a survey as primary research that would help me gather results and information that might help me to show that animation can indeed improve music, and do it better than live action music videos.

I found that this survey helped quite a lot in my research, as it implied heavily that animation did improve and / or change music.

From this, I began to write my essay that I would use to construct my video essay. After writing my essay completely, I recorded myself reading them and then edited the voice lines to suit an essay video. After this, I began sketching my title sequence for my practical.

After some planning, I began animating a logo sequence similar to that of MTV, linking my topic area, research and practical together. I created a sketchy version, originally intended as a transition sequence, but I instead used it as a concept for my final title sequence.

I used this sketch to create a title sequence similar to an MTV title sequence, which further emphasises what my topic is.

Research

In my research, I looked at several articles that might help to prove that animation can help, improve and change a piece of music. For example, on one blog on Dozmia, it stated "One of the biggest reasons why music videos are so useful to artists is their ability to provoke or further provoke the emotions that the song is meant to portray. Using animation can further demonstrate this emotional element of the music.”. This quote in particular backs up my point that animation can be used to improve music more than live action, as it highlights how emotion can be used visually to give a greater impact.

Conclusion.

Overall, I think I did rather well considering the time I had to create my practical and theoretical response. While I feel that I needed more contradicting evidence to challenge my own beliefs and the research I found, I think that my survey portrayed my points rather well. My practical response was an almost monumental task to complete, but I managed to complete as much as I possibly could. I believe it is a fairly entertaining and informational response overall.