SEAN FERGUSONHIP HOP INFOGRAPHIC

THISIS’11 J.SASSA

mind map

inspirationoriginal inspiration, smart take on lyrics but poorly executed.

occurance of the word “love” in rap from 89 to 2009 occuran ce of the word “loot” in rap from 89 to 2009

resources

assisted by an online rap lyics databse i had the ability to plot information overtime to obtain quick interesting results. based on a database plotting all rap/hiphop from 89 to 2009 containing all lyics, graphs are built. i intend to manipulate this towards humor.

concept

1. Thesis Concept Statement Unfortunately I am unaware of the correct term for the project I am undertaking but i would call it a mix between a humorous monologue, an info-graphic and a viral video. The content will be Hip-Hop from 1989 to 2009, collecting 20 years of culture and avoiding all the crap since '09.

2. Target Audience Rather than tailor my piece to suit the masses i am targeting those with a specific knowledge set and cultural identity. This will allow me to use subtle humor or "inside jokes" and differ the urge to educate people. Instead I want to be funny and esoterically informational. This will be for a mature audience only. I am going to employ plenty of hip hop raunch because it will accentuate the humor

3. Goal / Intent I plan to go through history as different artists fall in and out of the spotlight and occasionally six feet deeper. I really need to get to know each artist i decide to talk about. Drug problems, crimes committed, past careers, backgrounds, everything so that i can make a clever comment that is not only about their music or song but also makes fun of their life and career. It would be great to be able to reveal information about celebrities that doesn't usually come to surface through their own lyrics. Rappers say a lot of dumb shit and it would be great to throw the words of others around to make fun.

4. Format / Media Info-graphic style animation

5. Aesthetic / Stylistic Direction - Explain why you've made these choices. I have not begun to see far enough ahead to be able to construct a visual style. My focus over the coming weeks will be content. The process should include going back through time and identifying iconic and popular artists, isolating quintessential songs or interesting information pertaining to each artist and then displaying that information in a graphical manor. Literally graphs. Because graphs are boring i plan to never give enough time for the animation to really settle in. The motion will be fast paced, guided by a voice over and the driving force of the animation. It will have to be tight. I think it needs to have a mocking tone throughout, hyperbolizing individuals screw ups and silly trends. To the point where the audience is essentially laughing at the artist because out of context, hip hop makes no sense. I will of course pay respect to the originators of the culture but still poke fun at their growth. If i can be humorous, accurate in surprising information, and relevant to popular culture i dont see any reason the video can go viral.I want no bullshit. No warming intro, no hand holding or needless explanation. I want to dive right into the fun and stay under until people can no longer hold their breaths. Then an abrupt and happy ending, like an unexpected but encouraging smack on the ass.I do know that I want to steer away from any sort of collage type style. no cut outs of images. I want to develop an enticing visual style that will either be consistent or dynamic to its content. Not sure yet, i like consistency though. i would like to stay vector with abstract accentuated forms. graphical representations should be interpretations of classic graph styles, line graph, circle graph, bar graph etc. I dont want to be cliche and too literal with the forms in the graphs necessarily; more in the direction of abstraction leading to informational display. if that makes sense.

6. Concerns (in terms of concept or production) My concerns are as usual, execution. I am doing my best to place the majority of the weight on preproduction revolving around script. I plan to do a blunt of the animation over the winter break so that when i return i will be ready to improve the quality of my animation without worrying about structure or script. WIth an info-graphic the structure is fairly linear and will not be too difficult, technically, to animate. I will need a few consistent techniques that i can subscribe to for the duration.After animation I plan to showcase the animation to whatever popular hip hop artists i can get to and look around for a celebrity voice over. Once there is a name attached to the video I plan to shop it around at popular culture websites, competitions, video hosting sites and anywhere else that will take it. I want to be the guy that did that hip hop video.

7. Existing Precedents My inspiration is sort of singular, i am not aware of but a couple of design projects relating to hip hop that are at a professional level. My pri-mary source of information is an individual that took song lyrics of rappers and put them on spreadsheet graphs. its very low fi but it is hilari-ous. I want to take this concept and do it better and raise the bar to a professional visualization of the uniquely humorous concept. To assist with interesting information is a hip hop database that is a great tool in finding statistical anomalies.

visual inspiration