This was a fun yet intensively ambitious project for James Marriott’s very visual and vivid songwriting, that deserved a fleshed-out narrative. Inspired by a workout on the elliptical, and the idea of moving but not really feeling like you're progressing, I created a biking adventure that reflected Marriott’s struggle to appease those around him and their expectations of him. The core of the song being about self-reflectance and finding happiness in one's own authentic journey really stood out to me, as a creative.
Click on the image to view the YouTube video.
James Marriott - Where Has Everyone Gone (2023)
Case Study
Directing and animating this video gave me the opportunity to hone the animation pipeline: from treatment creation, to meticulously timed pre-production keyframing and editing, to jumping between 3D modeling, digital filming, 2D rotoscoping, and FX, all while ensuring timely delivery and smooth project management.
Click on the image here to view the treatment and pitch deck for the project.
Workflow - 3D modeling to digital filming to 2D rotoscoping
This project involved creating a 3D puppet and rigging it to a custom bike model that would also need to be rigged and come apart, along with other elements and background objects like the streetlights and skeleton houses. I also modeled the background terrain and water elements. As the rotoscoped visuals would turn out to look very motion-heavy with the sketchy style, I did not want to compromise on the forms of the assets themselves.
These shots were digitally filmed on Cinema 4D and Maya and then exported to Photoshop, where I stylistically rotoscoped every unique shot with my custom-designed brush set. This brush set I have developed allows for a more hand-drawn, crayon-like texture to the animation which adds to the comic-book storytelling aesthetic I have envisioned.
Finally, I replaced the bright placeholder "green-screened" colors of each element in every shot individually on Photoshop and brought the finished shots in segments to Premiere Pro to color-grade and ensure uniformity in hues. The frame-by-frame hand-drawn FX were compiled and added later on After Effects.
Each of the 55 shots got this intensive, careful treatment, to create some seamless stunning cinematography, merging 3D modeling and my signature 2D animation style.
Color scheme and vision
I was able to combine my signature colorful sketchy style, with a more hands-on, tighter color scheme that matched the narrative. While I wanted to incorporate the signature look and feel of bright and busy circus-style aesthetics and the clash of color, this would not work and would clutter the story. I worked to standardize this complex vision to assist with the storytelling and adapt to a more mainstream audience. I adopted a design mindset to meet the client where they were, but to expand their vision to create something more palatable.