MindMap
When I listen to the story, a lot of things pop up in my head (I used text2mindmap) I made a little mind-map for myself to figure out if I can think of a concept from there on out.
When I look at it I see recurring themes that the others in their mind-map had as well. Overall lost, lonely, energetic and unsettling feeling. Because we kind of all agree on that it’s good to make a step into that direction when thinking of a concept. How can we express these feelings into visuals so that it fits the song adding the fact that FARA wanted some “crazy stuff with a sort of jungle”.
Concept:
As a concept I like the idea of the search of an identity, as that is a big thing that happens in everybody’s life and is very recognizable. It’s also something that can be ver well shown visually. So the idea is that this character/protagonist will start a journey for his identity of his own, as other influences not necessarily stop him, but judge him for it. Every bit, fitting to the music, will be a different Identity to the character and he will be stripped down of the things he wants to be or what he was. This accompanied by his surroundings. For example freaky eyes in the sky that watch him and follow his movements.
Another thing I want his surroundings, or the jungle to do, is that the further he gets the more weirder and open space it becomes. Like no ground to walk on, being up in the sky or the opposite underwater being drowned, stuck and suppressed. Let the environment or “Jungle” actions change the character on how he should be. For the ending I actually wanted to keep it really …” real”. As in most of the people who try to stand out become mainstream, see the definition of a hipster for example. That after all this long searching he still didn’t really reach his home, his identity and his true self and goes up into the masses of the whole.
Character or Protagonist:
I am not to sure about having a character playing the protagonist as in, the video revolves around one person. On one hand I see it as a leverage for creating the story a little bit more easy, as we can revolve the actions around or to this character. It’s also a good point of focus for the audience to recognize and empathize with. Though the tricky part is that we do not really know our audience. The band said to be producing an album in China and we are not familiar with the audience in China that listens to this kind of music. We are not familiar with this and it is thus hard to say how to create something according to that. On the other hand, regarding the theme of the song, I think a lot of people can see themselves into the theme, recognize certain feelings. So making the audience, or the watcher of the video the character/protagonist is also very ‘attractively interesting’. unfortunately this will make it even more difficult to come up with a ‘storyline’ for the video as well designing it visually that it’s directed towards the audience. So for the sake of the narrative, I will choose to revolve around a character, which or which not will be the protagonist.
Styles and Inspiration:
Regarding my concept I looked up some inspiration and references for the style I am thinking of.
I think Jullia Pott is one of my favorite artists if it comes to weird shit. I can also much appreciate her spacial design and how she designs the long shots in her animations. Especially in Belly where they are underwater with the whale (see the first picture of the colab). It shows how vast, open and empty the surrounding is and how tiny the protagonist is.
Other artists who design over surroundings I really like is APAK. Though most of the time they have a similar style they sometimes also divert from it. What I find interesting is that most of the time the scene is depicted so that it looks like it’s floating, or not a ground and focusses instead on the floating tiny islands with their own scenery’s. Having their own vegetation.
A resource, an exploit, a databank. 