Chitchatshut is a virtual band with a focus on a highly energetic, mostly happy mix of pop punk and easycore elements. The twist to the formula is that it's all presented in an 8-bit fashion with NES-style visuals and VRC6-style chiptune music, no actual guitars involved.
To take this into full effect I decided early on that I wanted the album release accompanied by a fitting music video, and during the album's production the choice fell to the song 'Summer Camp Diaries'. To give it proper context the idea was that the song would receive lyrics, which no other song on the album has - the gag being that obviously there can't be lyrics in a pure chiptune song. All songs on the album have a dedicated 'vocal' channel intended to reflect the melodies of the singer's vocals, so if you listen closely though you'll realize that the lyrics fit that melody line and viewers can actually sing along if they wish to.
Adding to the sing-along aspect, the lyrics are displayed on-screen and in sync with said melody line. Being a big fan of the expressiveness many sprite-based games have with their text engines I wanted to reflect a bit of that with the text in the video as well.
Story-wise the song revolves around a teenage memory of the band back to when they visited a camp site during summer holidays, which is kind of a typical setting for 90s teen movies like American Pie etc.. The camp's counselor gave the teens a really hard time and they reflect on what lead them to come up with a prank to get rid of him at least for their final camp party.
The video itself is split into three parts: The story itself is reminicsed by Ken, the band's singer, while going through a bunch of photos after a move, as can be seen in the animated opening, which features three small maps and a few character animations.
The second part features the main narrative, told via showing said 'photos' of what happened. As the goal of the entire Chitchatshut project is to visually stay in line with 8-bit NES graphics, this also applies here. Using a slightly extended color palette to have some more options with darker colors - with a nod to Shovel Knight developer Yacht Club Games - the first objective was to create tilesets to actually build the places, especially the camp, so that all shots would be consistent and make it feel like an actual location you'd see in a game.
Once that was done, the entire map was used to place the characters and props and then draw 36 scenes,which were previously laid out in a story board. Those scenes were then put into photo frames next to the synced lyrics.
Finally, the third part, supposed to act as the climax, switches over to a close up view of the band while performing the song. With a new layout for the lyrics and varying perspectives and sprite animations, the intention is to support the sudden rise in the song's energy and quickly replay the entire story in rapid succession until its final conclusion.
Although using mostly stills, there is quite a lot happening in the video and viewers are encouraged to give it a few views to fully digest it, from the music to the lyrics, story and little side things, cameos and nods to certain games.
