Date Night, "Sex Bruise"

I had the pleasure of working with a very talented team of directors and animators (Conor Grebel, Peter Clark, Ian Colon) to create a unique and bizarre music video for Date Night's "Sex Bruise".

Early on, we knew that we wanted to create a 3d animated piece that embraced and utilized the limits and opportunites that the medium presented. In a world where we are surrounded by stunningly epic and realistic CG animation, we thought it would be fun to push in the opposite direction. By incorporating the glitches and errors of "sloppy" or "bad" 3d into an intentional aesthetic, we created worlds where internet culture and digital media breakdown into an absurd and hilarious free-for-all, as we ultimately break through into the physical world

Throughout the project, the team implemented all sorts of ways to purposely 'break' our scenes.  We used low-fidelity motion captures to animate and distort 3D characters, inspired by the sort of comedic glitches witnessed in some video games.  We pushed this aesthetic even further by using specialized software to break the video's source code, adding another layer of distortion. 

While idea for the video was discussed and arrived at as a group, my individual contribution was the Emoji aspect. I liked the idea of taking such a ubiquitous symbol of digital culture and communication and imagining it as a physical presence. I modeled and textured a selection of emojis and used them to create the bodies of the dancers, having them bob and bounce playfully along with the motion capture.

Designing an environment for such an abstract idea to exist in was an interesting challenge. Ultimately, I went with the idea of a "Lisa Frank wasteland", a digital purgatory where ancient monolithic iPhones dot an endless desert, watched over by an ominous Emoji Sun-God...

My fellow animators/designers on the project, Conor Grebel and Peter Clark, created amazing worlds of chromed out dolphins, giant gundams, and florescent dinosaur skeletons dancing in volcanic bunkers...

Just a few "making of" shots

Below is a simple edit I put together of some of my favorite emoji shots, with a few scenes that didnt make it into the final cut.