I love music, I love animation and I love fandom. It’s really great when I can love all three at once, so I find myself watching a lot of musical fan animated tributes to various series. Many fans have created animation and storyboards that go perfectly with the music of a show or game. These are just a few examples- unfortunately “musical fan animations” isn’t very searchable, so I’m limited to the ones I’ve come across naturally. If commenters have any great ones I missed, please feel free to crow about them in the comments!
Wicked Animatics
It often bothers me that I don’t have a Wicked movie in my hands right now. I love the musical and it makes me a little miffed that Hollywood will make snoozefests like Oz: The Great and Powerful where featuring a Wicked Witch who turns evil and boob-tastic because having a crush on a guy is so stressful before adapting the already best selling alternate take on The Wizard of Oz that features the Witch descending further into despair as she leads a revolution.. This musical (and the book it’s based off of) gave the Wicked Witch an actual complex, interesting backstory and had a killer soundtrack to boot.
I think Wicked would honestly work really well as a Disney-style animated movie and it seems that several fan animators agrees with me. Inspired by some rough storyboards Heidi Joe Gilbert did for part of the song, animator Megan Lloyd did a complete, clean-looking storyboard for the entire “Defying Gravity” scene and it’s absolutely gorgeous.
The stage production was limited to well, a stage, so an animated version gives us something we never saw before- Elphaba actually soaring the skies on her broom, plowing through crowds and scaring the bejeesus out of all the Wizard’s men and a whole exciting climax where she flies right at the Wizard with breakneck speed. The expression work on the characters is great and the setting of a high, imperious tower works well for the scene.
There’s also another storyboard uploaded by Eartherstar that brings flying arrows into the action.
“Defying Gravity” isn’t the only Wicked song that’s gotten the storyboard treatment. Bev Johnson did a version of the song “Popular” that features truly adorable art.
Meg B did a storyboard of “No Good Deed”, the song where Elphaba snaps and decides being good gets you nowhere. The angry expressions and huge gestures that dominate the drawings are very charged
Clearly, there are tons clamoring for an animated Wicked. I hope some company is listening!
Frozen Animatic
Speaking of Idina Menzel! There’s a lot of people that dislike “Let it Go” from Frozen due to having to hear it every five seconds, but despite oversaturation, I still think it’s a pretty powerful song.
However, the animation that accompanies it in the scene isn’t nearly as powerful. This is a song about letting loose with so much anger and intensity underlying it that the animation should reflect that with big, dynamic gestures. Elsa should be tearing things up, she should be going through a million expressions a minute….however, the most “intense” gesture that happens in the scene is Elsa stomping her foot. Once.
I never understood why the animation wasn’t as emotional, though I can’t help but suspect the animators through Elsa’s face getting too twisted in anger would look “ugly”- but I’m just being sensitive, right? It’s not like the animators said that the reason they gave the female characters such bland, similar character designs was because they believe women have to look a very narrow definition of “pretty” at all times, right? Oh.
But user Bonka272 does what an entire high level animation team was apparently incapable of and gives the scene enough dynamism to match Idina’s incredible vocals and more emotional weight, to boot. The beginning with her tripping tugs on the heartstrings immediately and the bit where Elsa screams at her parents and they melt away is absolutely heartwrenching and also gives a sort of catharsis I felt was missing from the film. Elsa’s parents did not know what was best for her in the end and she has to break away from their rules now.
The bits with Elsa skiing down the mountain and flipping through the air are huge gestures that match the swelling of the song and there’s a way more varied and effective use of camera angles too. I also like that Elsa doesn’t look exactly like her sister and is allowed to have a big nose (sort of like what Kristoph gets to have?) rather than the little pixie one every single Disney heroine has.
Undertale Animations
The indie game Undertale has a fantastic soundtrack and especially great boss battle songs. Many fans have taken advantage of that in creating animations of the various big fights.
One of these animations is Alyssa Gerwig’s version of the fight scene with Mettaton, featuring the “Death by Glamour” theme music.
The fight animation goes perfectly with the showiness of the song and Gerwig does a great job highlighting the hamminess of the characters and the whole “TV Show” atmosphere of the fight. It’s especially impressive considering that this is her first animation! You also get a storyboarded version of the conversation with Mettaton after the fight scene as well.
Many fans have also made their own versions of the hardest boss fight in Undertale, featuring the hit song “Megalovania”. One of the better versions is by Youtuber TheJege12. It’s a full black and white animations that creatively visualizes the dynamics of the game. There are some cool shorter versions of the fight as well, and sure to be many more to come.
Hamilton Animatic
I couldn’t not include this one. It’s another masterpiece by Megan Lloyd, featuring a part of the song “The World was Wide Enough” from the Hamilton musical.
It depicts the climatic duel between Hamilton and Burr, as Hamilton reflects on his life. The detailed expression on the characters are amazing and the transitions from one scene to another are especially phenomenal. It’s a fully realized fantasy sequence that really hammers in the tragedy of the whole event and it makes me want to see an animated Hamilton movie right now.