Animation work for the "Cell" music video by the Swiss alternative rock band The Great Alone. The idea was to combine filmed storyline footage with organic and hand-drawn animation in order to combine the best of both worlds.
Before we dive into the details, have a look at the finished animation sequence:
Before we dive into the details, have a look at the finished animation sequence:
The filmed parts of the video were shot by Brice Hincker at the beautiful Mirror Houses in Bolzano, Italy.
The work process was pretty straightforward; The Great Alone belong to the small and elusive group of musicians that actually are very well organized, so they provided me with a detailed script and a scene breakdown suggestion as well as photos of the main characters and the video shoot location. Since the role of the animation was to provide a visual counterpart that would "mirror" the filmed characters and settings, it was important to capture the likeness (without making things look super realistic).
From there on, I created very basic storyboard illustrations that were combined into an animatic in order to check the pacing and how well the imagery carried the story.
When the animatic was ready, we agreed on a few minor modifications to make things a bit clearer. After that, I fired up Photoshop to start the "real" illustration work (carefully layered in order to avoid complete chaos when putting things in motion in After Effects).
I always enjoy reoccuring visual identifiers that help building a conceptual "world" around an artist. In this case, the miniature wolf in one of the scenes is a reference to the video for the song "Prism", and the landscape surrounding the Mirror House in the last scene is actually taken from the upcoming album cover artwork (though it's not a million miles away from the real surroundings in Bolzano).
Technically speaking, the compositing in After Effects wasn't too complex and mainly about giving some sense of motion to the respective scenes by means of standard 2.5D trickery.
Here is the final video:
In general, I really like this approach for music videos; filmed material can be very beneficial, especially for a band with a strong visual identity, but interjecting it with animation both makes the viewer/listener experience richer as well as provides additional depth to the narrative. In addition, it's often not feasible for bands to commission animation work for a full 5-minute song.
Well, hopefully this was of interest to some of you. Do check out this fine band here, and stay tuned for more The Great Alone related project breakdowns.
Well, hopefully this was of interest to some of you. Do check out this fine band here, and stay tuned for more The Great Alone related project breakdowns.
