Student of the HSE Art and Design School Directs Animated Video for Indie Folk Band Juna
July 12 saw the YouTube release of the music video for the track ‘Amanat’ by the Tatar indie folk band Juna. The video was directed by Evgenia Sheinina, now a fourth-year student of the bachelor's programme in Animation and Illustration at HSE Art and Design School. She worked on the animated video across two modules with her supervisor Igor Kovalev. Evgenia spoke to HSE News Service about this unusual project.
The music video for ‘Amanat’ is the first musical work in Evgenia Sheinina’s creative portfolio. Despite the fact that it was her debut in directing music videos, she had creative freedom over the animated project. ‘The band didn’t have any particular requirements, which made me very happy and gave me a lot of space for creativity,’ she says of working with the musicians. ‘I'm glad that despite the lack of step-by-step control over the video, the band really liked the work and released it.’
Evgenia only learned about Juna this year. The musicians were among thousands of artists who responded to an open call for applications from the HSE Art and Design School to work on animated music videos with students of the Animation and Illustration programme. Evgenia liked the band’s work—particularly the song ‘Amanat’.
Tatar indie-folk band Juna are famous for their unusual performances of songs based on Tatar poems. In the autumn of 2020, the band released their first full album, Amanat (‘entrusted for safekeeping’ in Tatar). The album’s title track is based on the works of Tatar poet Louise Yansuar.
‘I took time to study the band's work before starting on the project. I listened to other tracks and read the lyrics. Once I started working on the video, I got the full translation of the lyrics to ‘Amanat’, which helped me choose the images and come up with the concept of the video,’ says Zhenya. ‘The core story is based on the translation of the track’s title. The image of a flame grew out of the project and became one of the main characters.’
She also asked the band about their associations with the track. The musicians’ thoughts also helped her to develop the plot. Evgenia worked on the video for a whole semester. Over two modules, she had to develop the idea, create an animatic (a simplified sequence of images created at the pre-production stage to understand the concept of the video) and start creating the animation.
‘Studying at the HSE Art and Design School helped me in my work on the video, as I had to complete the project on my own—from the concept and storyboards to the final product,’ she explains. ‘Creating full-fledged projects is part of our studies, so my knowledge and skills helped me to be fully prepared to make the video.’
Evgenia admits that studying at HSE University isn’t easy, but it's worth it: ‘Despite all the challenges, I like studying at HSE Art and Design School. The programme is interesting, and the teachers are real experts.’
All students of the Animation and Illustration bachelor's programme worked with musicians as part of the project. Among them are Anna Lyubimtseva, who created a video for the song ‘Short Novel’ by the rock band Buerak, and Lyubov Kuzmina, who made an animated video for "what lives will die what dies will live" by the band oliuminarium.