Experimental Media| Research and Planning

 

Artwork by me ( @akkurara) 

' Self-Inflicted Achromatic' 

自傷無色 (Jishou Mushoku)

Research and Planning

‘Self-Inflicted Achromatic’, meaning self-inflicted colorlessness, is a song originally by Hatsune Miku, and covered by MafuMafu. I hold these two singers very close to me as a lot of my inspiration and taste in forming particular concepts is a result of constantly listening and interpreting their wonderful music and extremely chimeric and contextual videos.

Hatsune Miku (Japanese: 初音ミク), also called Miku Hatsune, and officially code-named CV01, is a Vocaloid software voice bank , a 16-year-old girl with long, turquoise twin tails. Miku's personification has been marketed as a virtual idol and has performed at live virtual concerts onstage as an animated projection. I’ve always been a huge admirer of her music and creative production, as animation and digital illustration is something that inspires me a lot and almost all her music consists of songs and melodies that are based on the most extravagant concepts and enthralling animated music videos. I personally find a lot of her production in an ‘experimental’ category, so I have always wanted to create and imaginative and experimental film based on one of her songs.

The main song I chose for my experimental film, however, is not the original one, but the version covered by MafuMafu. Mafumafu is a Japanese utaite singer and songwriter. In addition to his solo work, he is a vocalist, lyricist and composer in the music duo After the Rain. I personally like his version of this song more, as his voice goes along really well with the theme and concept of the entire song.

Coming towards the actual ‘meaning’ that I put behind this project, it is actually something that I have personally experienced as felt a part of, so a huge part of me, as a person, wholeheartedly relates to this concept. This is the story of a person who is continuously trying to be someone they are not.  I wanted to show the story of someone, who wishes that the world wanted them gone just to justify them wanting to disappear. This person is someone who feels themselves be a ‘ burden’ and ‘ useless’ for this world, and is constantly finding a way to justify what good reason it is for them to be in such a state. This character feels terribly anxious, and because of his constant thinking of himself as an outcast and burden, he starts being highly introverted and keeps wishing that he could be like others he sees around him. Other people who have an easy time talking, sharing, communicating and loving, and this hurts the character because he knows that even if he tries to imitate them, would it actually be him? He would just become another version of all these people around him. All this thinking drags this character in a continuous dilemma of the meaning of his presence in a place and amidst people who would not even care if he is gone. “Just by living, I’m hurting them another day” is one of the lines from the song He wishes, and wishes, for a happy ending but he knows that it’s not possible for a person ‘like him’. The song basically keeps repeating the same thing over and over again, and along with these words, the character also carries on following his path of depression and not even bothering a bit to get out of it.

The last chorus of this song is actually my favorite part of it, and is also the reason why I chose to animate my project based on it. As the theme of our experimental film is “ Optimism”, anyone can tell by the first half of this song and concept that it lies nowhere around the lines of optimism, rather it is a quite dark concept being portrayed by a person going through a cycle of depression. What is interesting about this is the last part of this song. The last few verses of the song have a very different meaning compared to the rest of it, giving a beautiful ray of hope to the darkness being showed by the character throughout. Basically, the last few verses go like:

“Just because I'm alive

Why do you smile so much?

If you smile like that

No matter how sad, how much I want to disappear—

If only all my reasons to say good-bye went away.

Even if I were wiped away

That wouldn't change some hundred million people.

But there's something preventing me

And showing me that face, I can't bear to laugh about it”

 

These verses at the end compelled me to pick this song regardless of the dark themes shown in it previously. It is basically says that, even though the character is a mess of his own, drowning in thoughts of wanting to disappear and wanting to change into someone other than him, when he looks back, there is that one person in his life who is preventing, and caring for him, and trying to stop them from losing into such thoughts. This is also where the “optimism” aspect of the concept comes in. As this character spends a lot of time thinking he is useless, an utter burden and shame, there is always this one person, someone who smiles at him and loves him and cares for him. As the character sees this person, he is reminded that, even though his disappearance from this world wouldn’t really affect many people, but the smile and face of this person is the only thing that keeps and prevents him from falling into despair. The character laughs at the irony that even though those going away would not affect hundreds and millions of people, just one person is enough to prevent them from disappearing.

A lot of the concept shown in my experimental film is based on the actual mv of this song. Even though the illustrations in the official mv are quite minimalistic and hard to interpret, I wanted to show another complicated yet connected version of them through my own art. 

For the purpose of this experimental film, I also created a character that would serve as the ' main protagonist'. I decided to create a young, timid boy with long and fluffy hair and a fragile aura surrounding him. Here are some of the initial sketches of his character design. 

I wanted to add the concepts of cubism, surrealism and symbolism in my experimental film, and I decided to add these not conceptually through art, but through the ' color scheme' of the film. So I decided to make the theme of my video in a " Blue Period " manner. This is later explained in the theme part of this planning.  

                                           Click here to listen to Self-Inflicted Achromatic

Initial Sketches of the character

Here are the initial character design sketches I did for the protagonist if this film/

Idea

As previously mentioned, the basic idea of this experimental film is to show the life of a person, who is going through a continuous cycle of depression because he thinks he is a burden on this world, and he tries to imitate and be like other people to fit in but ends up thinking how this would only be another version of other people inside him, It wouldn’t truly be the real him. All this thinking drowns him into a vastness of blaming himself and thinking of himself as a ‘social outcast’, and all he wants is to disappear from this world so he wouldn’t hurt himself and others around him. However, no matter how hard he wants to vanish and go away, he finds it ironic yet unbelievable that no matter how hard his urges are to go away and drown himself away from the selfish world, there is one person who truly cares for him and loves him. At the end, It doesn’t matter if the hundreds and millions of people in this world wouldn’t notice his absence; as long as that one person smiles at him and wishes for him to stay, he is willing. The whole experimental film is animated by myself, all the illustrations and effects are done by me. I wanted to show a part of myself in this video, as I myself often find myself in a mindset quite similar to this young timid boy, so I hold this concept and video very dear to myself. Therefore, I wanted to pour all my emotions while experimenting with this, and the only way I can fully achieve my creative freedom is through actually digitally illustrating the whole project myself, with no camerawork. 

Theme

Another aspect I looked forward to and enjoyed working on with this project is the ‘Theme’. The entire theme and color scheme shown throughout all illustrations of this film is actually based on “Blue Period” in the first half and “Yellow” in the last half.  

The Blue Period is a term used to define the works produced by Spanish painter Pablo Picasso between 1901 and 1904 when he painted essentially monochromatic paintings in shades of blue and blue-green, only occasionally warmed by other colors.

Picasso's blue period is basically the desolation of social outsiders, whether they be prisoners, beggars, circus people or poor or despairing people in general. Not only did this theme answer to his blue mood, but it also answered to the zeitgeist (the spirit of the time) of the artistic and intellectual avant-garde at the beginning of the twentieth century.

I wanted to use the blue period theme in the first half of my film, to show the state of melancholia the protagonist is in. It shows his vulnerability and sadness as a result of this endless chain of disturbing thoughts. However, this theme is cancelled out by “ Yellow” theme used at the latter half of the film, which shows the presence of an important person in his life as a sign of ‘ optimism’, ‘ positivity’, ‘ love and care’. I find it extremely exciting to work on drawings based on the color scheme used by Pablo Picasso, as it not only makes me want to connect my character to the artists but also helps me understand the basic linings of avant-garde intellectualism.

' The Old Guitarist' and " Melancholy Woman' painted by Picasso during the " Blue Period" 

Inspiration

A lot if my inspiration for this short film comes from " Yoh Kamiyama". Yoh Kamiyama is a Japanese musician, singer, and composer from Gifu Prefecture who is affiliated with Ignite Management and Sony Music Associated Records. I've bee a huge fan of his since 2018, and I absolutely adore the style of his short films and music videos. He comes up with the most unconventional and unique styles of animating and color scheming in his videos, it is almost impossible to come across one of his videos and not be able to fall in love with the style and composition. 

Yellow, by Yoh Kamiyama

click here to watch

Ewe, by Yoh Kamiyama

click here to watch

Some of my other inspiration for the artwork and animatic visuals of this film came from the works and art style of @avogado6_jp.  Also known as アボガド6, is a Japanese artist and illustrator who is known and verified for their conceptual and metaphoric representations. Once again, I have been an avid admirer of their art for a very long time and I've always loved the representation in their works. As my own art style is very colorful and vibrant, I wanted to change my pace a bit to match the more monochromatic and dull shades just like theirs. 

Avogado6's image gallery

Link to their website: 

Click here to view their gallery

Other than these, I did watch a lot of experimental short films by various artists to form a clear image of the basic understanding. Some of these are;

 Interlude: Wings, Stigma, First Love,  Lie, Reflection, Begin, Awake, etc. All of these experimental films are part of a South-Korean boy-band and artists, called BTS, for their 2016 Studio Album called " Wings".