When I first read the brief for this unit, I was very worried as I had no idea how I was going to approach the task from home. I didn't have anyone to use as a subject in the video and I desperately wanted to avoid having to appear in it myself. Another thing that worried me was that the aim of the brief - to make the audience smile - was something that I wasn't entirely confident I would be able to do as the things that I find funny don't often appeal to most others. The format of the project was also something that I wasn't entirely confident about because of how my group's music video turned out last year. However, knowing that I would be doing this individually gave me confidence as i knew that I would have complete freedom with what direction I took when considering ideas.

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Whilst desperately trying to think of ideas, I briefly thought about doing an animation. However, I didn't consider it very seriously as I had very little experience in creating animations and would also have to take into account the short time frame given to make it and the obvious limitations regarding software and equipment as I would be making it from home. Despite this, I started looking at videos on YouTube that detailed the process of making stop-motion animations on an iPad as I thought this would likely be the style I chose if I did an animation.

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After watching this video, I searched on the Apple AppStore to try and find the mentioned app - Stop Motion Studio. However, whilst searching, another app called FlipaClip caught my eye and I downloaded it out of curiosity. When I tried using it, I realised that the layout was very simple and didn't require any significant getting used to and simply allowed you to draw each frame and then view it back together as you went along. This inspired me to give it a go and when I realised that I could make a video fairly easily, I finally decided that I would be doing an animation for this project but not stop-motion as I came to realise that it would have taken far too long.

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Up to this point, I had avoided thinking of ideas to a certain extent as I wanted to be certain that I would be able to make an animation beforehand. Now that I had decided, I began brainstorming ideas that were suitable to my limited ability and lacking experience with animations. I also had to take into account the primary goal of the brief which was to make the audience smile and the fact that I would likely have to shape my idea around whichever song I chose to include. I began listing ideas in my notebook and making mind maps. I also started sketching images on paper in the hopes that it would bring me inspiration.

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I spent the majority of my time trying to think of ideas whilst sat at my desk playing music and although this was usually just for relaxation, it helped me very much in this situation as the song 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' by The Beatles came on and hearing the fantastical lyrics made me think about the complete freedom they must have mad whilst writing it. Given the extremely limited time frame, we were given to do this project and the very difficult circumstances of creating it from home, this was something that I very much wanted but had to find a way of justifying.

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This is why, with influence from The Beatles obvious allusions to hallucinogenic drugs, I decided to follow this route. I knew, from this point onwards, that I had to be very careful not to, in any way, advocate or promote the use of this drug or any drugs. However, I knew that this subject would allow me to be darkly humorous instead of trying too hard to be funny which would certainly have failed miserably. Despite this, I knew that I still had to appeal to the target audience and the majority instead of those with a similar sense of humour and so I couldn't be too restrictive with my approach.