SAP Journal

30/9/19
Initial ideas for research;
- Japanese culture and how their characters are the  way they are [History of Japanese Animation/anime] [Look into how the stories have changed wether that may be in context of culture, political or social.
- How Japanese mascots came to be (?)
- Creating the practical [Manga format that shows the development of Japanese animation culture]

7/10/19
Idea developments;
- As I'm interested in Animation Music Videos, I want to research more about them in various sub topics; Cultural aspects that it may have/include, Social issues that the video may depict and Aesthetic choices
- For my practical I am thinking about creating a Animation Music Video that conveys a story of some sort. [Syncing to the meaning of the lyrics or the atmosphere to further synthesise and harmonise the animation and music together.]
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14/10/19
- Set on wanting to research about Animated Music Videos
Mind Map; 

- Mind map explores Animated Music Videos in the themes of aesthetics, social, cultural, history and technology
- Mainly would want to focus on social / history / culture / aesthetics aspects of animated music videos as most that I found were mainly done tradigitally
- In terms of aesthetics I will  want to explore upon the design of the character/environment, intention behind it and whether it ties in with the theme of the music video
- For history I will look into when the concept of Animated Music Videos started and where it originated from; what aspects / techniques were used then that is still used till this day
- In the theme of social, I will dive into the topics represented in animated music videos. What social issues are explored and how they are represented
- What cultural aspects are explored and represented    

- After presenting my mind map to a group of people, they pretty much know what I will be focussing on
- For feedback I also got recommended to maybe look into technology aspect as in how they were produced and made in the golden age and how it's produced now
- Maybe explore more into the cultural aspect and how different areas compare and contrast in terms of the context / aesthetics and media used to create the animated music video

- Books that I borrowed were about social researches about the youth and another book  about suicide. 

21/10/19
- In this session, we talked about understanding texts and how to analyse them. Through this session, I had to  select a text that related to my topic. 
- As I was interested in social issues in context of how it is represented in animated music videos. 

28/10/19
- In this session, we went over how to write an introduction. How it should be the last paragraph that is written as it is the most difficult as it is less straightforward compared to the body paragraphs.
- We wrote a mock introduction which outlines our essay.
- I continued to refine the introduction which will be used in the final essay.

4/11/19
- In this session, we were introduced to writing a rationale for our practical. 
- I wrote a few paragraphs that summarises the plan for the practical that I will be focussing upon; explaining what my practical is and specifications in link to my essay topic.
- As I have a clear goal for my practical; I will be doing a version of a AMV, that will be paired with a song of my choice.

11/11/19
- In this session, we focussed on the structure of the essay. What each section of the essay should include, and how many words it should contain to meet the word limit of 2500.
- I have structured my main body of the essay to; history of AMVs tying in with technology then moving on to different types of AMVs and the methods they use for storytelling, what social issues it dives into and aesthetically, what are the differences.
- I sat down with Ben to talk about my essay in general as I was still pretty confused about the point of my essay. We discussed what my essay topic should be and at the end, I stuck with the one I changed to; effectiveness of storytelling in AMVs. 
- We discussed that my practical should be something different; perhaps visuals that are simply shapes; matching and changing to the tempo of the music. As existing AMVs are already found effective and even have a research paper upon it.
- I'll give it some thought and settle the practical in the following week.

18/11/19
- In this session, we're having 1 on 1 sessions with our tutors. In this session, I talked to Mike about my practical. 
- We discussed the aesthetic and the theme of my animatic. I've settled with making an animatic which has a simple aesthetic. I was going for a greyscale (manga like) visual with just rough lines for shading and the only colour that would appear would be red for the protagonist and black for the antagonist. 
- The song would instead be a non-lyrical song as to a song with lyrics just to be more experimental with the whole thing. Being able to compare and contrast not only the visual technique but also the audio.

25/11/19  
- In the second 1 on 1 session, I developed a story and background concept for my practical. 
- The practical story essentially is a spin-off of a Red Riding Hood folk lore. The music choice is "The Riddle Story" by CRANKY and is a song from a rhythm game, Cytus. 
- As the song has a fast tempo, I will be creating an animatic that illustrates a 'into the chase' kinda theme between the hooded girl and the 'beast'.

Character sheet

As I already have a good sense of what the character will look like. I made a rough sketch on her character specifications; facial features and her wardrobe. I also made a colour reference palette which will be used for the backgrounds of the animatic. The colours are from a manga panel from a psychological horror Manga, Uzumaki by the Mangaka Junji Ito.

Background Development
Using manga background references, I made the first scene of the background which depicts a forrest which the hooded girl will come through into;  progressing further within as the story goes on. 

The difficult thing was getting the shading done in respective with the background elements. Moreover, the detail on this scene alone took longer than expected. Considering the time I might cut down on the details if possible. 

Practical Development

Separating the animation into sections by the song, there mainly will be two parts. Flashbacks which will tell the motivation of the protagonist, and present scenes which will depict the protagonist travelling deeper into the woods eventually facing with the beast.

Flashback Sequence - Abandoned

Flashback Sequence - Caretaker 

These are some flash back scenes that I created. The flash back sequences will tell the  origin of the protagonist. Essentially she was abandoned by her birth parents and was given to an old lady which protected her from the beast.

I also added a filter,  'Silent Era' which gives the film a monotone overlay and old camera film effect. This makes it more distinguishable between the flashback scenes and present scenes. 

Abandoned [Silent Era filter]



For some scenes which are standalone close ups, I added a filter 'Vignette' which gives the scene a dark atmospheric halo; making it more ominous. I added these when I have close ups of the 'beast'. 

Close up of the 'Beast' [Vignette Filter]