Treatment:
Title and Running Time:
Jenifa Taught Me by De La Soul lasts 3 minutes and 24 seconds. We will use the same title as the song to avoid confusion, and also because we will not have massively changed the story or the song. Our animation is going to be 3 minutes long so we shall cut out most of the end of the song.
Voice Over Artists:
If we were making a professional animation with a high budget we would want to have a short intro with our animator’s names read by Liam Neeson who will undergo voice tests and casting. He is a well-established actor, who has been in over 100 different TV Shows and Movies. His appearance in our video will immediately attract viewers. His reading of the title sequence is supposed to be a comical element as his tone of voice is completely different to the song. Also, people who have never heard of Liam Neeson, but like De La Soul, will be likely to research him and watch some of his films after viewing our animation music video. However, our animation is not going to be professional, so we will use one of our classmates to read out our intro, however, we may not include this in the final edit of our video.
Medium:
We will have our main characters dancing about the title screen in order to introduce them, and make them seem funny. We are going to split our animation into 6 sections in order to incorporate a variety of animation types. The song has 4 verses, so we are going to split verse 2, and use the title sequence for one of our animation types. This sequence goes as follows:
- Title – Paper Cut Outs
- Verse 1 – Claymation
- Verse 2.1 – Animate
- Verse 2.2 – Photoshop
- Verse 2.3 – Premiere
- Verse 2.4 – Maya
Each sequence will last approximately 30 seconds with a transition sequence between them such as zooming in on a block of red clay and zooming out on a block of red colour in Adobe Animate.
We are going to publish our video on Youtube with a target frame rate of 30 frames per second and a resolution of 1920×1080 pixels. We will composite the multiple 30-second sections of our video in Adobe After Effects.
Synopsis:
Our animation will feature 3 main characters, representing the characters talked about in the lyrics. There will be a music note which represents Derwin. He will be a small, funny character, who seems a bit geeky and doesn’t have many street smarts. His emotions will change rapidly, with big eyes, and a big smile. There will be a record which represents the narrator of the song, Dave. The record is very full of himself, and confident, without a care in the world. He is often seen talking to Jenifa, and showing off. During the song ohhhh is said a lot, generally represented by the letter ‘o’ this is convenient as a record is the same shape as the letter ‘o’, a circle, therefore the camera can zoom in endlessly on the record to symbolise the sound of ohhhh. There will be a record player representing Jenifa which enables the record to be put on the record player when the song talks about sex, such as the lyrics “So to the kitchen she did Dan”. The record player will be very pretty and nicely kept, enticing the record on to it.
Key Scenes:
Our animation is going to follow along with the lyrics of the song. In the first verse Dan and meet Jenifa for the first time whilst he is in school. He is love-struck and drops his textbook. The next day he wolfs down his breakfast and can’t wait to see Jenifa at school. They pass notes in English class. Jeny loses a penny, so Dan gives her a dollar as an act of kindness, and also a way to get in her pants. She kisses him and he is excited. The school bell rings and Jenifa grabs Dan’s hand and takes him home. Verse two talks about Jenifa and Dan after school. They go to a shop and he buys some records and she cassettes. She’s doing more than just flirting and grabs his jeans, this surprises him, but he likes it. She has a body shaped like a vase, which means she is very attractive. He takes her clothes off and remembers he is only a virgin. She says “Let’s try it in the bathroom” but he says he doesn’t like sinks, so they do it in the kitchen. The other band members are happy that Derwin has got laid. The sex was good as Jenifa passed her test. They cuddled a teddy afterwards. Dan was in Heaven he felt so good. Jeny was a big tease at the school, so she was known as a hoe. Verse 4 is a summary of what he has learnt, which is not to be with a girl that flaunts all she has got.
Current Trends:
Currently, music is used a lot with animation to help viewers determine feelings and emotions. Our animation will stick with this trend as it will be a music video and the animation will be relevant to the lyrics. Most animation sequences in 2017 fit into one of two categories, either extremely lifelike or completely abstract. Due to the nature of the song being very abstract, our animation is going to be part of the latter category and feature many bright colours and abstract shapes. Many animated movies use 3D computer animation using high-resolution assets to create a lifelike, yet still completely different story. Movies that have done this recently include Cars 3, Despicable Me 3, and Captain Underpants. We are going to be keeping with this trend by having a section of our animation using 3D computer-generated images.
Target Audience
The target audience for our animation is 16-25-year-olds. The song we have chosen has an adult theme, which means only an older audience can listen to it. Our animation will not, however, portray this same theme, instead taking the lyrics literally, such as in the song he says garden tool, implying that Jenifa is a hoe, we will simply animate a garden tool. The style of music appeals to this target audience, so we will be animating the video for them as well, as it would be silly to animate a song targeted at 16-25-year-olds in a way that appeals to 80-100-year-olds. We will be using a style of very abstract ideas with bright colours which will entice and intrigue our target audience as they will have to pay attention to work out what is going on. We will also use a comedy element in our story which will make viewers laugh and want to share the video with their friends, making it go viral.
Legal and Ethical Issues:
There are many legal and ethical issues to take into account when creating a production of any kind. The song we have chosen has a deep sexual theme rooted to it, however, we won’t be animating this, instead taking lyrics literally in order to get our animation seen by a wider audience. We will only be using one song in our production, and we will have to get the rights from Tommy Boy and Warner Bros in order to publish our completed production using the song Jenifa Taught Me. We will be publishing our music video online. The regulatory body for music videos published online in the UK is the BBFC. Record Labels are required to submit videos for review that are expected to get a rating of 12 or above. Things that the BBFC look for include:
- Drug misuse
- Dangerous behaviour presented as safe
- Bad language
- Sexual behaviour and nudity
- Threatening behaviour and violence
We will deliberately animate our video avoiding these themes, but still trying to engage with our target audience. We will submit our video for review, but we aim to have no classification.
Our characters will display no logos of any kind, so we will not be promoting any record or record player companies. We will gain permission from Liam Neeson to use his voice in the intro of our production.
Storyboards
Script:
