At a Distance, the Sea is Blue| Production Pack

 

At a Distance, The Sea is Blue

Story Synopsis

A 17 year old boy named Inumaki has always been chasing after a love that cannot be reciprocated. He defines his love as an “ abalone” in the sea, his affection for it is boundless and unparalleled, and the beauty of the abalone he chases after is extraordinary in itself. Rebelled by the emotion of love, Inumaki dives into the sea, looking for the abalone he longs for. He keeps looking, and looking, and looking until his hands and feets feel ripped apart, until the water current starts crashing into him. He keeps going, searching for his love like a madman, but he is never able to find it. No matter what happens, even if a small part of him is aware of the misery and sorrow of his journey, and the impossibility of it, he is a foolish boy who still has hope. 

Moodboard 

                                         STORYBOARD

Treatment and Execution

The visual style of the video is more of a retro japanese film style as it is heavily inspired

by that. Because the music video is all hand drawn, the visual style does not concern

slow motion or fast paced scenes, rather the artworks appear on the screen more

like a storyboard, one by one, and mingle with the sound design. The colors of the

music video are bright reds and pinks, inspired by the Rose Period, in order to keep

it more visually attractive and keep the audience appealing.

The genre of the music video falls under “ romance” and “ poetry” and somewhat narration. According to the storyline and the visual elements of the video I have envisioned, thistheme basically falls under the category of “Maps and Networks”. Human emotions

themselves are a mirage of connections and links, and with a topic related to heartache

, I believe it is only fair to consider it in the above-mentioned category. It is also to be noted

that the illustrations will try to depict a person looking for something precious that he cannot find

, and since he is mapping his way through a series of networks of emotions, he is entangled in

this route of heartache and is hopeless and hopeful side by side against the journey.

As almost all of the work in the music video will be done and created by myself on my

own, there is not much staff-related communication regarding it. The only collaborator in

my music video production will be shiroll, one of my friends who will help me use one

of her narration audios. Other than that, the music used in this experimental film

will be by other artists.

 As for communicating with the audience, I think the theme itself speaks for it.

Storywise, love and heartache is a topic almost everyone relates to and

strangely finds solace in. In all eras of media and its age, no matter what the

medium, it is always a topic of great interest and enticement. If we combine that

with the growing love for anime and animation recently in contemporary times,

a product will be produced that attracts a lot of viewers around the world.

Equipment:

I used an iPad Pro (2020) with Apple Pencil ( 2nd generation) to illustrate everything. All

artwork is done on Procreate, which is a leading illustrating software for professional illustrators.

The entire video is edited on the iPad.

Process

Screenshots of the process are as follows

SOUND DESIGN

The song used in this animatic is “ Everything goes” by the South Korean singer and rapper “ RM”. I really wanted to use this song for the animatic as it is sad yet calming and perfectly portrays the visual I originally had in mind. The song in the last part of the music video before the credits is an instrumental ost of The Secret World of Arrietty by Cecile Corbel.

The most prominent part of this music video is the narration in the first and last part. The first narration is recorded by one of my really close friends who is an aspiring Japanese voice actress. Her name is shiroll and her socials are linked down below

Fig. 9 Shiroll profile on instagram

The narration in the last part of the video has also been recorded by one of my close friends Antony Chen. Ant is a Twitch and Youtube streamer, and I adore the clarity of his voice so I instantly reached out to him to record the voice over for me. His Youtube and Twitter is as follows

Fig. 10 Antony Chenn profile Twitter

Difficulties Faced During the Process:

The most difficult part of the process was getting the color scheming right for the

entire music video. What i had in mind was a particular moodboard and color,

theme and I wanted to execute it in a way it would definitely turn out looking

pleasant. The contrast I was aiming for was, the mix of orange and reddish hues with blues and yellows- all in order to create an interesting mix that would

look like a color that represents not conventional red for love but unrequited

love. To carry the same color palette throughout the entire drawing process was

indeed challenging but in the end, I was able to pull it off.

Another challenge I faced was the drawing process itself, which is always quite exhausting and overwhelming as i have to draw everything from scratch on

a blank canvas, frame by frame.

Self Evaluation

Strength(s)

I believe one of the strongest and most satisfactory elements of this music video are the visuals. During the planning phase, I had a very particular sense of color and visualization in mind, and I am happy that I was able to pull it off the way I wanted. The overall pace of the music video is also satisfactory, and one of my most favorite things about it is the narration. Antony and Shiroll are two of my really close friends, and I was really excited to have them do the voiceover for the video. The end result was definitely worth it.

Weakness(es)

Even though the entire journey and making of this music video was utterly enjoyable and an overall fun experienece for me, I feel like I could have done more towards the ending to make it more interesting. Another thing I would like to add is that, my art mostly consists of still illustrations. So having longer animations and proper movements would have made the music video more appealing.