As a big fan of Tom Rosenthal, for my final project at university, I decided to make an animated music video for one of his songs, 'Don't Die Curious.' It was a challenging and enjoyable process. Developing the style, learning character animation, asking colleagues for feedback, and endlessly editing Illustrator files are just some highlights I went through while making the video.
Usually, I work with any color that works with a particular project or scene without restrictions. This time, however, I chose a color palette initially and stuck with it the whole project. At times, the limitation took a bit of work to navigate. Sometimes two different objects would blend in with each other because I 'didn't have any other colors left.' Still, I managed to manage the limitation, and in the end, the outcome has a very distinctive style and color palette because of it.
The choruses of the animated video are typographic since I love working with type. I chose a font that was chunky and whimsical but not too childish. It's also easy to work it. It is still legible as I stretch it or put it on a background that doesn't have a big contrast.
I've never worked with characters as much as I did for this project. I came up with a main character, Tim, a sort of caricature of the singer Tom Rosenthal. I mean purely visual and not a personal caricature, of course.
I also designed secondary characters for the video. However, character design was not the most challenging part of the project. Learning how to rig them and naturally animate the limbs, however... I still managed to do it and am a better motion designer for it. As I got into it, it became more and more enjoyable. So, by the time I was animating the last scene with character animation (game scene), I was in bliss.
Even though I normally like to use a lot of metaphors and different interpretations for my projects, this time, I interpreted the lyrics of the song literally. Interpreting the lyrics directly would be the best option for this song. It matches the singer's brand and wittiness.
The song motivates people to do different things, despite their limitations and doubts. I created a character, Tim, who does all the activities mentioned in the lyrics to show the ideas clearly. Sometimes he succeeds. Sometimes he fails. Ultimately, he lived a fulfilling life because doubts and limitations did not stop him.
