Generation Y Title Sequence Design
Miguel Figueira de Mello University of Hertfordshire BA (Hons) GRAPHIC DESIGN, Level 5 Graphic Design Essential Part 2
Gen eration Y the Millennials
In theory the Generation Y, also known as Millennial Generation, is a term that refers to the range of people who were born between 1980 and 2000. That means that people from Generation Y are the ones who are between 15 and 35 years old nowadays, or I could also say that people like me, my friends, my classmates and all “young adults” around the world form this generation. The Generation Y is sometimes also called Echo Boomers, referring to the generation’s size relative to the Baby Boomer generation and due to the significant increase in birth rates during the 1980s and into the 1990s. In the United States, birth rates peaked in August 1990 and a 20th-century trend toward smaller families in developed countries continued. Author Elwood Carlson called Millennials the “New Boomers” (born 1983 to 2001), because of the upswing in births after 1983, finishing with the “political and social challenges” that occurred after the terrorist acts of September 11, 2001, and the “persistent economic difficulties” of the time. It’s believed that each generation has common characteristics that give it a specific character. Jean Twenge, the author of the 2006 book Generation Me, attributes Millennials with “the traits of confidence and tolerance, but also
identifies a sense of entitlement and narcissism based on personality surveys that showed increasing narcissism among Millennials compared to preceding generations, when they were teens and in their twenties.” Not only her but also many people say that Generation Y is a selfish, self-regarding generation. I strongly disagree with this trail of thought, especially when they say that this generation has a tendency to be narcissist and not concerned about the others. A huge example of that is what has been going on with the refugees from Siria, when the authorities from countries around Europe (who are mostly from Generation X) are not doing their most to help them, while us (from Generation Y) are trying our best with campaigns throughout the internet, small donations and others solutions that are able to us. That’s a very delicate question but I think it’s one specific point that defers this generation from the other ones. Some studies predict that Millennials will switch jobs frequently, holding many more jobs than people from Generation X due to their great expectations. This same studies says that the Generation Y look for versatility and flexibility in the workplace, and strive for a strong work-life balance in their jobs.
“Generation Y could also be called as the Peter Pan generation”
With the knowledge that we’ve been able to gain thanks to the internet and other media, I believe that Millennials tend to be more concerned about social matters. Another unique thing about the Generation Y is the fact that because we were born in the modern era and lived during globalization, we are more willing to be involved in environmental issues. We saw the increase in levels of deforestation and pollution rising while we were growing up and that made us more conscious about how our action deeply affects the nature and all living creatures around us. The american sociologist Kathleen Shaputis said that Generation Y could also be called as the Peter Pan generation, because of our tendency for delaying some rites of passage into adulthood for longer periods than most generations before us. This kind of label was also a reference to a trend toward members living with their parents for longer periods than previous generations.
We also hear a lot from our parents that we think we know everything about everything. I guess they say that especially because of our unceasing curiosity, and that’s why I get what their saying and that doesn’t make me feel bad at all. I recognize that we are never satisfied with what we got in terms of knowledge, we always want to learn more and more about subjects that are not even related to what career we are taking or planning to take, we just want to be in pace with everything that’s going on. This concern about being up to date with what happens all around the world is one of the things that I love about this generation. I believe that this is the main reason why this generation is capable of dealing with their multitask jobs, which I believe is an outstanding capacity. When in high school we were told to do lots of things at the same time. I was raised in a culture where teenagers have classes at school all day long, and after that we still have to do physical activities and extracurricular language courses. When I look back in time I see this situation as one of the biggest examples of how I am part of this group of people that form the Generation Y.
How I feel about being a Mille nia l Being part of this generation makes me feel very important and also very pressured. I feel like a have a very meaningful role in making the world a better place, because I had the privilege of a good education and also access to information since I was kid. However I don’t find that a bad thing, in fact I feel proud to have this chance of making my life and others the best it can be. And having that in mind I keep on trying to make the best out of every opportunity I get, not only for my benefit but also to be able to help others.
10 wo rd s that best describe Generation Y for me are: environment, knowledge, modernize, technology, multitask, society, internet, development, updated and success.
T h e co lou r sch e me that I believe best matches with Generation Y
The orange tone represents the modernity and the updated side of this generation, while the yellow symbolize the knowledge and success. The green tones tell about the importance of the environment and the social concern, but also relates to technology. And the blue signifies the development.
P roj ect Briefing We were told to create a title sequence for an Amazon Prime series with the theme Generation Y: A black comedy which chronicles the dreams and aspirations of twenty-year-old twins and their rollercoaster ride to successful living. To do that we had to make some research on good title sequences from TV series that already exist and analyse what was good and what we wanted as a reference for our work. We saw some videos in class and I also watched some more at home. Some of the title sequences that I watched and liked the most were the one from the movie “Catch me if you can” and also the one from “The Grand Budapest Hotel”. After doing that I decided to do an animation using the stop motion technique with my own illustrations. Besides all that we also had a workshop in class to develop some random stories, where a student came up with a sentence and the other person next to him would have to continue the story and so on. That’s how I came up with my story for the TV series.
Stor y My story is about two twin sisters who had the wish to be successful. They were 22 years old. One was studying business and the other was working with her mom at her clothing shop. Even though they were very different from each other, they both wanted very bad to be recognised by their job and become very rich one day. Claire, the on who was working with her mom was very creative and one day after going to a party with her sister, came up with the idea of opening a night club at the city they lived in (a very small town in the country side where young people didn’t had much to do on their free time). But as she didn’t know how to start her own business, she asked her sister Lilly for help and that was when they decided to do this together. Lilly was going to take care of the administration and financial part of the club, while Claire would be in charge of the producing the events and it’s decoration.
Her parents lent them the money and together they stated running their own nightclub. At the beginning it was going quite well, everyone at the city was saying good things about the club and every night the place would get crazy crowded. But unfortunately after a few months the girls stated to have some problems due to the different ideas they had. It didn’t take long until the sister got their selves into a really bad fight and Lilly left the club entirely to Claire. After that Claire was no longer able to take care of the whole club by herself specially the bills, so she got into pretty bad depts. That was when she had the evil idea of stealing her sister’s money so she could pay what she had to. One night Claire broke into Lilly’s house and stole all the money she could but she was stupid enough to leave her earing there. The next day Lilly saw Claire’s earing at her living room and called the police straight away and Claire was taken to jail.
St o r y B o a r d s Ahead of that we were told to draw some storyboards with ideas for our video. I came up with two different storyboards, and then I made a third one with the scenes I wanted to put on my title sequence. There are seven main scenes on my storyboard: The first one is about showing the kind of dark humour I wanted to transmit on my video, a cute but sarcastic and full of blood type; then on the second scene I present the two sisters and the money falling from the sky to show their aspiration to be rich; the third scene shows them both at a party drinking and smoking; the forth shows Claire having an amazing idea; the fifth shows her buying the nightclub; the sixth show the two girls having a really bad fight; and the seventh and last scene shows Claire being taken to jail by a police officer.
C oncept Board After doing the storyboards I made a Concept Board with references of dark humour illustrations that I wanted to bring to my video and also some references of paper cutting illustrations, because that was the technique of illustration I planed on using in my title sequence. This board helped me out a lot on getting all my ideas together to start creating my illustrations and also my stop motion scenes.
R efer ences When I finished taking all the pictures I needed for my motion, I compiled all of them together to animate it. When I had the basis of my movie I started looking a little deeper on some of Wes Anderson movie’s title sequences to see how the music, typography and transitions would be and how I could relate that to my title sequence. From looking into that what I found was that on all of his movies the name of the cast and producers appears as if they were another item of the scene, complementing the image that’s being shown at that same time. That was something that I also tried to do on my project.
Typ o g ra p h y
So n g
My typography choice was based on trying to make it combine the most with my images. As my movie has some “cute and childish” characteristics I tried to find a font that was fun, friendly and rounded to relate to that. That’s why I chose to use the Comfortaa family, it not only represent all those ideas but also has a bold and a light version, which helped me on distinguishing the hierarchy of the information on the screen. Together with the type I used a box around it to try to highlight the names and also make it contrast with the image on the background. The way the name of the cast animates in and out of the screen was also trying to make it look like another item of the movie.
For the soundtrack of my title sequence I started looking at some songs that are very characteristic of Generation Y, and that was when I came up with the idea of using “Fuck You Very Much” from Lilly Allen. It is a song that has everything to do with the generation itself and also has this contrast between the funny groovy beat and the ironic lyrics that combines perfectly with the idea of my video. However after some tutorials and some talks with other classmates I was advised to try another song, one which has more to do with Wes Anderson’s movies as I am using his name for the director for my TV series. Besides that I also felt like Lily Allen’s song was taking too much of the attention from the animation and I didn’t want that to happen. I went a little deeper into Wes’s movies and came to the conclusion that using a song without any lyrics, just the instruments, and with a 60’s French feeling would be the best solution for my project.
Comfortaa Comfortaa Comfortaa
C oncl usion When seeing it all together it felt very satisfying for me. First because working with video was not a familiar thing for me to do until now, and after this project I feel more confident to say that I can do a good work using After Effects. I learned a lot during the last few weeks, not only about the software and it’s tools, but also about how to make a significant choice of when and where to use certain things, like combining a good typeface with the rest of your work and doing the same with a song. I do feel like if I had a little more time maybe I could do better, in terms of combining the beat of the song with the actions in the animation. However the result made me happy and proud of the job I’ve done. I believe that it corresponds with my expectations specially because I was able to create a nice stop motion animation and gather it with my new knowledge in the After Effects program.
Thank you