Production Research: Monkey Suit Music Video

For my production research module, I will be creating a music video for an artist named Ed Grover. He creates many different genres of music, and the one I have selected to use for the music video is called Monkey Suit, and It is a mix of genres, including pop, jazz and rap. From the get go, I knew I wanted to create an animated lyric video. This is because of many reasons. First of all, I have just finished another music video production, of which was the music video for Solivagant. Due to lock down I had to record the music video by myself, as well as directing and shooting, so I wanted to attempt a lyric video, so that I wouldn't have to repeat this hardship. Also, I have never released a full lyric video, or a full animation, so colliding the two together sounded very beneficial.

I started off by listening to the song over and over again, to think of possible storyboards as well as themes for the song. The song 'monkey suit' is about people that wear designer brands, and are fake people, that hide behind fashion to fit in with crowds. The term 'Monkey suit' is referring to the designer clothes. Liking the clothes to a monkey suit shows that the artist thinks people that wear designer brands look stupid, as monkeys are known to be silly, and act like clowns. The style for the lyric video was going to be my own style of animation, in which includes vector graphics, as well as cartoon characters. I knew from this, I couldn't make the music video too serious, as it wouldn't fit with my preferred style. From this point, I thought about interpreting the song in a literal sense, by making the main character someone in a monkey suit.

To continue my research, I decided to look into other lyric videos, in which I could possibly take inspiration from, as well as looking at different styles and genres of lyric videos. I found that there were many different forms of lyric videos, some of which are incredibly high budget, almost being full on music videos, and others being very basic lyrics put onto a screen. Some music channels on youtube such as Chill Nation, Mr Suicide Sheep and XkitoMusic all post music, and the video consists of artwork or an animated image, along with shapes and object that react to the tempo of the song. I didn't want my music video to be like this, as I knew I wanted to experiment with lyrics and vector graphic animations.

Some lyric videos that I come across, such as NOTD- I Miss Myself Ft. HRVY, inlcude animated backgrounds, including IRL footage, and pre-composed graphics in after affects, and quirky, animated lyrics to go with them. It looks like the after effects plugin 'SABRE' could be used here, and I will keep this in mind when moving forward. I really like the kinetic lyrics animated to the beat of the song, and interacting with the background in all sorts of ways. From music videos like these, the camera layer tool within after effects looks very important, to give the video a 3D feel, as well as making it look cinematic. This is the URL for this lyric video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i01ENJSTYto&ab_channel=Proximity

A different spin on lyric videos is Marry You by Bruno Mars. This lyric video follows a rocket as it is animated around the page, with lyrics from the rocket following suit. This is more in tune with my own style. The style of lyric they used for this music video is very simple, but they are placed onto the page in all sorts of methods, such as opacity gains, masks, and movements, also placing the lyrics to the smoke created by the rocket. I really like this method of the lyrics coming onto the screen, and I think this method works better with the 'monkey suit' song, Here is a URL to the Bruno Mars lyric video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dElRVQFqj-k&ab_channel=BrunoMars

The final type of lyric video I explored was more tailored towards looking at animations used in lyric videos. Unbelievable by Owl City ft.Hanson, included an animated video, of which the style is relatively similar to my cartoon style, although mine is more vector orientated. The song included animations such as walking, scenes flicking from one to another, as well as objects floating around. I will definitely be taking certain animations from this video into consideration. Another lyric video that I will be taking inspiration from Katy Perry- Daisies. This is a simple lyric video, with the lyrics at the bottom of the screen, and a simple animation acting as the footage. Simple movements, followed by camera layer movements, and kinetic text seem to be the biggest draw points from this research, next up, I will be following up from my previous text animation lessons. Here are the URLs to both of these videos:

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9V11-1uPZaM&ab_channel=KatyPerryVEVO

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTWaiwb5QnE&ab_channel=OwlCityVEVO

I have already produced a few blog posts about creating lyric videos, as well as animating the lyrics, but I just wanted to go over a few of the specific animations and trends that I saw were happening in these lyric videos.

1. First of all, the lyrics appear as soon as the words are said in the song, giving the lyric video an alive feel. I will definitely be following this trend, as it feels more professional.

2. There is a simple trick to make it look like text bounces in. Choose the final font size of the lyrics, and as they are appearing on the screen, increase the opacity from 0 to 100%, so that the words appear smoothly onto the screen. At the same time, change the scale from 0% to a size larger than you want the final size of the lyrics, for instance if you want the lyrics at 100% scale, as the text appears on screen, have it grow from 0% to 120%, and then back to 100%. This gives the impression of a bounce effect, and gives life to text. I will be experimenting with this.

3. Animating the text with a wiggle, bounce or movement gives the text life, and makes it look more interesting. I will definitely be applying some effects, as well as movement to the lyrics.

4. Finally, using the background to influence the effect and style of the lyrics is something that often happens within lyric videos. For instance, in the NOTD- I miss myself lyric video, the footage includes street b-roll, and so the neon lyrics suits well. Other examples include giving lyrics a water texture if the background is a waterfall, or giving the lyrics a fire texture in a hot place. The same can also be done, to match the lyrics to the words used in the song, such as if the song used specific words, for instance love, you can animate the word love with stereotypical love themed objects such as love hearts. I will take this information when creating my lyric video.

Final Thoughts- After doing the research, it was time to begin planning the final outcome. To begin this task, I brainstormed a bunch of ideas, in which I would then filter the ideas down, to create a final storyboard to follow. These were my final ideas and brainstorms;

1. First of all, because of the jazz and rap elements being combined, in my head, it just made sense that the lyric video would be set at night time. As well as it being at night time, for some reason, every time I was imagining the scenes for this song, I imagines that it was raining. It seems fitting that the scenes will be raining.

2. I liked the thought of the video following the person in the monkey suit. The monkey suit would be walking through different scenes, such as the city, cafes, night clubs, parks etc.

3. The final scene would include quite literally, the person taking the monkey suit, to bring across the meaning of the song.

4. Because of the jazzy elements in the song, at least one of the scenes will be located at a cafe. I can perhaps do something with the lyrics involved in the cafe, like steam from a coffee creating lyrics.

5. The song itself, around the midway point has a space theme to it, and so at least one scene will be located in space. I'm not sure if the monkey suit will go to space or not, but perhaps it could just be a dream. I could perhaps use stars as a way to form lyrics.

6. I like the thought of the monkey suit person being in a car driving in a city landscape for one of the scenes.

7. I would like for one of the last scenes to be the monkey suit person looking out to see, as a metaphor for looking for reasoning, is it really worth all of the money we spend on designer clothes, is what the monkey suit person will be thinking, and maybe the audience will understand the message.

Storyboards- It was time to put together a draft final storyboard to follow when I am animating and creating the lyric video. I came across a few problems when I was reviewing the brainstorms. First of all, because I was only planning to animate within after effects, I chose to leave out the scene where the person would take off the monkey suit at the end, as I didn't want to animate the person taking a monkey head off, as I don't think I have the skills to animate that. I also want to now end the scene in space, as that is how the song ends. Other than that, here is my potential finalized storyboard.

The storyboard was done, so it was time to start the final production, as well as producing the development journal, in which I will keep updated as I go along.