Friday, April 4, 2008

Iwinyo Piny


Late last year we finally completed making Iwinyo Piny, which was Just a Band's first video. It had taken us a really long time to make it, especially considering that it was just myself and Jolly Jim Chuchu working on the visuals... We tried to do someting interesting. The animation wasn't going to be the most lavish, so we thought we'd better dazzle the audience with some crazy ideas/designs. Apparently, we may have gone too far...


The phrase "Iwinyo Piny" means "you move the world." The song itself doesn't have much else by way of words, so we had space to play around with that idea. I wouldn't want to describe too much of what we were thinking when we came up with the images, because I'd much rather hear what you guys think it's all about. The interpretations I've heard so far have been so much more interesting than our own that I'm getting into the whole "Leave things open to interpretation" thing...


I did the character stuff in Flash, and Jim did all the other visuals in After Effects. Most of the photographs had been taken previously, without this particular project in mind, although some new ones were taken once we started. Then we sat down to edit it all together in Premiere.



The most interesting stuff happened once it was finally finished, though. We sent this off to the local TV stations, and we got an interesting comment from one Programme Manager: Apparently, it's 5 years ahead of it's time, in terms of what people are doing with music and videos locally, and so would alienate his audience. In short, he won't show it.

And so I wanted to open up the discussion: Do you guys think we went too far? Is this some incomprehensible madness set to nasty music? Does it just totally mess with what people associate East Africa with? (And would that be such a bad thing?) What do you think? You can watch the video here.



P.S. It's not all bad, the video has been shown on local TV and on Channel O (!) and we are planning more animated videos for Just a Band. So if you like it, stay tuned...



-Daniel. Yeah, I know it says "Posted by Bint", long story... :S

7 comments:

Midodok said...

I liked it. The music and visuals go well together. For some reason, it reminded me of Digimon: Digital Monsters a lot. Did you ever see that show?

Daniel said...

Hey Midodok! Nope, I haven't seen Digimon, but I have watched a little bit of Pokemon, aren't they pretty similar?

Midodok said...

Digimon and Pokemon are similar concepts, but take much different approaches in the animation. Digimon was kind of dark for a kids show now that I think about it. The final episodes in a certain season (I forget which one) really reminded me of this music video. If I remember correctly, it's sort of an end of the world situation with monsters floating in from the sky into an urban landscape. Shocked city dwellers are moving all about in the mayhem and watching the events in the sky. I guess it's this part of Digimon that reminds me of your video.

Actually, I think this end of the world scenario is a common visual stereotype in lots of Japanese animation. The visuals in such a situation are always chaotic and somewhat bizarre. Maybe people familiar with anime find your video somehow familiar and therefore "get it". Maybe that music station who thought this video was way ahead of its time just wasn't familiar with the visual language of anime and that's why they found it so future thinking? Maybe?

Daniel said...

It's a possibility!

Although I guess that there's other angles that he could have seen it from (and that people did pick up on), like old traditional stories about the Tortoise and his friends.

I guess I have to hunt me down some episodes of Digimon, now...

Bint Ali said...

Heey,

My two cents worth:

I've watched Iwinyo a number of times and the thing about it that really sticks out is that it's a perfect blend of the traditional and modern. A lot of people try too hard to make their work look fresh by exploiting culture.

For me it's the sincerity behind the animation that comes through.

midodok, it's really cool though that you can see a comparison to something so different. Makes a case for the interconnectivity of all things anime! :D

Paula Callus said...

hi guys some of you may know me some not, just droppping a line to say well done - the video work is excellent, dynamic design that is slightly reminiscent of the gorillaz! I have a blog on African Animation in general and if any one is interested in shwoing there work just drop me a line and I will upload it to my blog!
paulacallus.blogspot.com

guys - well done again

William said...

Yes, it's way ahead of most stuff on Kenyan TV, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't show it.

A bit backward thinking methinks.