Speaking with Animation: Kanye West's "Good Morning"

Kanye West's 2007 music video for "Good Morning" was directed by Japanese artist Takashi Murakami. The project was a collaboration of two digital production companies, OLM Inc. and KaiKai Kiki Inc, both of which are Japanese animation studios. The video showcases the advanced animation, creativity, and originality that combined to produce such an amazing piece of work.

The video follows the animated bear version of Kanye West, the rap musician and producer, waking up in Universe City and making his way to his graduation ceremony, facing many obstacles on the way.

From the opening scene, the viewer is shown the high level of detail that is exerted into every frame of the animation. The 3D settings are intricately detailed to produce the futuristic city that the story takes place in. The opening scene has the text 'Welcome to Universe City' flash onto the background of the city. The text then dissolves away amid animated sparks and flashes that as any animator knows, is not done easily.

The main title fades into an establishing shot of the Kanye Bear's apartment building and then pans up to his window. The next shot sequence shows the Kanye bear's alarm clock going off, alerting the sleepy Kanye that he is late for his graduation. As the Kanye bear scrambles out of bed and down the hall to brush his teeth, the viewer sees the fluidity in the animation. The bear moves so naturally that the entire sequence feels seamless. The Kanye bear is animated running towards the viewer with the hallway ahead of him coming into perspective as he gets closer. This initial scene of the bear shows the advanced level of animation that the producers posses.



The story progresses with the bear Kanye dealing with a broken down car, missing buses and subway trains, being swept up by rain clouds, mistakenly getting involved in a football game with much bigger bears, and finally, arriving at his graduation to receive his diploma from the university of hip-hop. The animation through all these adventures is very impressive. The bear Kanye moves fluidly in every way, but the added animation given to his environment and the amount of detail to which it is done, is what adds the extra value to the video. So much detail is given to every part of the world that the bear Kanye is running through. The angles of which shots are framed are constantly switching, showing the bear Kanye from different shots and perspectives, never letting the video feel bland or boring. The environment is always bursting with color, movement, and changing in some way.

The animators are very adept at changing the structure of the narrative simply by presenting the story in alternative perspectives. The Kanye bear is never shot in a boring or simple way. Everything has an emphasis, whether its the color, the magnitude of detail, or the constantly changing camera angles. The artists express their own artistic creativity in the final end sequence that features the Kanye bear and his classmates fly through a spiral vortex of color in the Kanye bear's car. The scene transforms into an explosion of planets and stars against a universe background that has multiple moving parts and animations.

The video is animated beautifully by the OLM and KaiKai Kiki animators. Both studios obviously have incredibly talented artists to produce such amazing work, but even more so is the originality of the whole piece. Everything is built from scratch specifically for this video yet it is still easy to follow and entertaining to watch. Takashi Murakami is a renowned artist for many reasons and the vision he put into this video goes to show the wide array of his talents in both traditional art, and digital design as well.

Modern Media Distractions

Jesse and I sought out to produce a short film that told the story of how modern day media and technology can distract people. We shot the film in a very short time period knowing that we could make our footage work with the editing techniques we intended to use. The story followed myself arriving at Hunter College, seemingly late for class yet constantly distracted by phone calls, texts, conversations with friends, and even vending machines. The final product was edited into black and white, and accompanied by a 1920's style piano bar score that contrasted the context of the story.

My character is distracted by modern media and technology yet we showed this in classical throwback style. When shooting, our main goal was to make my journey through the school as seamless as possible. This meant story boarding every scene which helped maintain the 180 degree rule throughout the entire film. As can be seen in the film, the shots run very smoothly and integrate well with the piano bar score.

The decision to edit the film into black and white and exclude dialogue were vital to our conceptual goals. We replaced dialogue with text slides that often included jokes that added additional comedic value. We edited the text slides right after a specific shot to act almost like a punch-line. The shot would be shown and the text would follow and make a joke about what was just seen.

During pre-production, we conceptualized everything that we wanted the film to be, thus the post-production process didn't spark any notable changes to what we were trying to do.

When we showed the film to the class, it was enjoyed by mostly everyone because it was very easy to follow and it was something that everyone can relate to, especially as Hunter students. Our main goal was to offer a narrative on modern day media distractions in a classical film style and this is exactly what we produced.

If we were to do the film over, the only notable change that we would make would to be shoot more footage to make the editing process easier. At times, we had to really work to make shots appear seamless and flow with the smoothness we wanted, and more footage would have made that easier.

Editing Emotion

Editing is one of the most single important processes when developing linear media, especially within film productions. The above piece is a short fan made trailer for the upcoming World Cup in South Africa. It serves as a great example of how effective editing can evoke emotion and drama.

The trailer starts with a dimly lit shot of the World Cup trophy rotating against a dark background. The score is a short tempo melodramatic violin piece that gives the viewer dramatic emotions. The initial shots fade in and out with different views of the golden trophy, until golden text comes up in a side by side shot that says "The Greatest Battle in the World". The viewer now gets a sense for the serious perspective that the trailer is trying to grasp.

The next series of shots are of a stadium filled with fans, that inter-cut shots of close ups to show the emotion on the people's faces. The piece continues with the progression of the violin score and inter-cutting shots of the trophy rotating with more text beside it. Phrases like "All Players will try to prove themselves this year" and "There is no coming back" show up alongside the trophy which are separated by shots of actual footage of the World Cup in 2006. The shots of actual soccer footage are used with a golden brownish filter to blend in and out with the main dialogue shots.

This technique employed by the editor is great way of using original text within one shot, to complement the visual content of the next. As the viewer sees the text come up and processes the dramatic nature of it, they plug in the music and the clearly visual emotions in the follow-up visual shots that show soccer players emitting great emotion, whether it be happiness, sadness, determination, or bewilderment. All of these factors combined together through the editing provide a dramatic final product that attains its goal in presenting the tournament in an ultra emotional light.

The Media world and Me

I visit various websites which have become a part of my everyday routine, each of which offer something different to my online experience. The sites I visit reflect directly on my personality so the content that each offers is of direct relation to who I am. One of the first sites I visit is Facebook. Like most other young people, I use Facebook to socially network with people from my school, friends I grew up with, and basically anyone else who has Facebook account that I know in person. I don't use the site to meet people I don't know, in the way that a lot of people used MySpace. Facebook is an easy way to keep in contact with many people, visually view what they are up to through pictures, and sometimes watch recent events they have been a part of through videos. Facebook is equipped to utilize many mediums including photos and videos which is a big reason why it is so appealing.

Besides Facebook, I check a few other sites that are mostly either sports or school oriented including BloodyElbow.com, ESPNSoccernet, the Hunter Website, and my e-mail. Since I grew up in an age of constantly evolving technology, I find more complex and interactive websites more appealing, especially those that that incorporate video, photos, flash, and other design techniques.

A big reason that I am a Media major is because I have taken many forms of media for granted in my youth, and I feel that learning the various techniques and skills that allow a person to create websites, digitial art, and interactive media is an invaluable tool in a progressively digital world.