Development: music for motion graphics

With most of my projects I get the idea of what sort of music I want to accompany it relatively quick.

This however was difficult, as the pace of the sequence is unstable. The tempo is defined by the camera movement, so are the revealing titles.

The idea: pick a song which the young audience could relate to, yet choose something not too striking so as not to make it dominant over the animation itself. Something the youth would aspire to and has the 'authority' among the young listeners, rather than just being popular.  Also not too cliche/obvious as it undermines the quality of the animation itself.

After brainstorming ideas we pointed the animation to three possibilities:

1) a creative commons labelled song:
Souds fresh, merry, upbeat, slightly retro (90s, maybe even 80s), house-ish, groovy, something unpopular (kind of gives me some more credit for being able to dig it up. or maybe not).




As much as I liked this song, when I was trying to visualize it in my head, I would see a plane landing in some tourist city, then a beach, then some disco night in the 80s style. The song is gentle and does not get in the way, but probably it would do a better job being used for some travel agency commercial (Thomas cook anyone?).


2) Dirty Harry
Again, upbeat, melodic, funky, slightly groovy, oldschool, kids (the chorus, due to the lyrics I had to look for an instrumental - kids singing 'getting a gun' does not seem right for a project that's supposed to reduce youth deliquency)



The Gorillaz have this 'being cool' area around them. This is not a scandalous musician, with amazing critical reception among the listeners. Partly due to the music, partly due to the animated image (the alter-drawn-reality).


3) Fatboy slim
Right here right now - probably the best fit in terms of matching this mad tempo of the sequence. Yet like one of the tutors I consulted with said, 'Oh, right here, right now. The most often used song in the last 10 years! It fits for everything!'.
True.
I still told him that it definitely does not beat 'Ghostwriter' by RJD2, but yeah, pretty much.
Anyway, as said, it really does fit.





This version has a slightly updated titles. Don't worry if you haven't seen the whole, you will see it in the next post.

TBC!