Mission/Purpose:
During the Harlem Shake craze of 2013, I watched an animated Pokémon parody version with Ash in the background.
During the Harlem Shake craze of 2013, I watched an animated Pokémon parody version with Ash in the background.
I was inspired by that video to come up with a crazy idea that can possibly blow up big. Looking at the landscape, two things stood out to me. Twerking was on the rise (thanks to Miley Cyrus) and Pokémon Parody animation was among the popular categories of YouTube Original animation. I thought long an hard about what I could do to carve an avenue for myself. Ultimately I felt that as a Black person who is in tune with the “culture”, I should try to capitalize off the twerking movement since non Black people have always found ways to capitalize off of Black culture without giving credit to Black people for inventing it (cultural appropriation 101). I came up with the idea of combining Pokémon and twerking to create Pokémon Twerk Team.
What was the role:
Animation, Creative Direction, Illustration, Logo Design, Web Design, Creative Writing, Sound Design, Voice Acting, and VFX/Compositing.
Animation, Creative Direction, Illustration, Logo Design, Web Design, Creative Writing, Sound Design, Voice Acting, and VFX/Compositing.
What was the process:
I started with a few twerking poses initially. Doing some research on what the most outrageous scenes would be to recreate, I opened up Adobe Animate and began animating. I animated 5 twerking poses at 24 frames per second. This gave me a good timing for music and opportunities to loop continuously with fluid motion. The effect is best when understanding the physics of twerking and how the body is impacted by gravity and forces. Pulling from my premed background, I analyzed numerous twerking videos down to the frame and calculated trajectories to my the most believable twerking animations.
I started with a few twerking poses initially. Doing some research on what the most outrageous scenes would be to recreate, I opened up Adobe Animate and began animating. I animated 5 twerking poses at 24 frames per second. This gave me a good timing for music and opportunities to loop continuously with fluid motion. The effect is best when understanding the physics of twerking and how the body is impacted by gravity and forces. Pulling from my premed background, I analyzed numerous twerking videos down to the frame and calculated trajectories to my the most believable twerking animations.
I eventually developed a story for the series and logos to follow. The whole point was to take the idea of Pokémon and see how it would play out in 21st century America. I eventually made a live action version of the series that explores what would happen if Pokémon Twerk Team was an actual bootleg game. This gave me an opportunity to do compositing, more illustration, and visual effects over live action footage. Many of the scenes were heavily influenced by my past work.
With the rise of TikTok and social media, I have decided to revamp the series and finish with one more Pokémon Twerk Team video: Detective Pikachu and the Search for the Twerkachu.
