Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Move It To The Beat Now...

Hello there, and welcome to Kenyanimation Music TV! A special edition of our blog where we'll treat you to what has gone before in animated music videos in the region...

It's all still a pretty new thing, but we're seeing more and more use of animations in the background of certain videos. Such as this one, featuring a mix of live action with cartoon characters; it's pretty cool and funny...



That was "Waria" by Roba featuring KJ. The artwork for this one was created by Fozi. KJ is also a comedian and cartoonist, and has expressed an interest in animation, I guess that influenced the decision to add some cartoon dancing girls. Now that he's taken up politics, I don't know if we'll ever see any animated cartoons by KJ, but Fozi is still around... And it might be a good thing to have a cartoonist politician. (Might inject some humour into the proceedings...)

Videos are a very cool form that allows and even encourages you to take liberties with style and structure, and so it's kind of sad that they haven't been really explored by local musicians, as such. But on the other hand they cost money, and often people don't want to take the risk of alienating their audience by doing something that they might not respond well to. Not everyone enjoys this more experimental stuff.

Personally, I really like looking at something that was "handcrafted", to me it's like it humanizes the screen. (I tend to favour 2D and those really cool styles of 3D that really have that textured feel, things that look natural. And I actually like it when the animator visibly changes in the middle of a scene! That's pretty cool, you can't get that in live action.) And ofcourse there's the fact that animation is SO flexible, it can take you anywhere as a viewer, and I usually expect it to. And the styles you can create! Man, cartoons are just the way to go.

This post came about because of some conversations about Iwinyo where people referred to it as Kenya's first animated video. It's not! Here it is: Wakimbizi's Mariko. This video was pretty popular. But maybe not in the way the artists would have liked...



We just had to show Mariko! Hehe. I wonder what happened to Wakimbizi? The video looks pretty amateur but on the other hand you see a lot of rough-hewn stuff like this online, to some points of view, it's a valid style. I guess the ultimate test is the audience, will they "get the joke" or will they rubbish your efforts? (Like when the maid accidentally throws out the piece of modern art, mistaking it for a warm-up doodle.) Or will it be obvious that the artist just lacked certain skills?

We'll try hunt down all the people who made these videos and sit them down for short interviews. We will also find more videos!!! And as always we await your comments, critique and so forth.

Well, I hope you enjoyed the show! See you next time on K-MTV! The station that rocks the Animation Nation...

1 comment:

Kwambo said...

nice stuff guys!!