◖ november 21st, 2023 ◗
hello.
i've been wanting to do this type of post for a while now, but have not had the opportunity to actually sit down and make it. today i'm going to be sharing the process of creating my (as of writing this) newest music video, "everyone on the internet is an anime girl", specifically as someone commissioning + working with other people to achieve the final product. hopefully this sort of information will be helpful to those looking to commission someone /or/ interesting to those curious for a behind the scenes look at the things i release.
going off of the 'created' date on some of the earliest files, it seems this version of the music video was drafted the same week as the album's release (oct 31st).
most of the time, when i commission something, i do a variety of very basic stick figure drawings to help convey what i am looking for. i find it incredibly hard to say what i want (lol), so these sorts of drawings help to say all the little things i forget to say.
below are the drawings i did for the original draft, presumptuously labeled storyboard pt1/2/3. i drew these up after being contacted by a digital animator looking to work on a dh music video.
each tiny image is accompanied by some corresponding text detailing parts of the scene. text within **these** would indicate which part of the song was playing over that scene by the lyrics. a new tiny image was added any time there were large shifts in camera angle or new elements being introduced to the scene.
the artist who originally reached out to animate the video then stopped replying... so these images sat on my hard drive, waiting to presumably die of disc rot.
around two years later, i was introduced to some of the short form animations by 'stanhatesyou' through the algorithm. i liked the animation style and character design, so i reached out to see if they had the time/interest in working on a music video.
we got on a call, where i shared the old draft pictures and we went back and forth on ideas. to help expand on the original draft, i created an animated draft incorporating some of the changes we had worked out.
over the next year, we would go back and forth with more edits and notes. the finally product is what you see uploaded on youtube today.
the process may have taken a considerable amount of time, but i'm very happy with what was finished. in short, if you are commissioning someone to work on something, give as many references as possible and expect things to take a considerable amount of time (especially for something like a music video).
bonus image, here is the chat that scrolls by during one of the scenes. it was something i made very close to the end of production. see if you can spot the chat message we forgot to update before inserting it into the video.
