"Animals" by MUSE
Animated music video made for the official worldwide video contest organized by MUSE and Genero.tv.
It was one of the 20 semi-finalists amongst 130+ videos sent to the challenge.
In a world managed by artificial systems, we can't stop the permanent struggle between our heart and instincts.
Story, design, art direction, animation and editing (phew!) by
Oscar Triana
Video created for the Genero.tv contest - FINALIST
genero.tv/watch-video/34976/
genero.tv/watch-video/34976/
130+ videos, 22 finalists, 5 nominees, 1 winner.
genero.tv/muse/videos
genero.tv/muse/videos
Official Announcement at the Genero.tv Blog:
genero.tv/blog/2013/muse-animals-winner/
genero.tv/blog/2013/muse-animals-winner/
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[ Making of + Stills + Trivia ]
Intro - The opening shot with the glowing bars (later revealed as a "railway") match the real "Animals" piano music sheet.
The Brain - The city layout is a low poly recreation of the brain image used as cover for The 2nd Law album. The color used in that image were the inspiration for the color palette used in the whole film.
The Monster - The purple was the code for the increasing greed in human society, suggested by the lyrics. Originally, the monster was a biped-mech, but later I decided to depict him more like a mechanical-slug, keeping a big mouth made of buildings and an eye-less face.
3D look - Because the limited time to make the video (one month!) I decided to use an updated version of my low-poly look, to make a little bit easier to produce all the characters, props and sets, and also having and unique electronical look that mirrors the music.
Colors - The white and blue for the buildings suggests a neutral population, slowly infected by greed, turning everything purple and absorbing everyone to increase his body. The way to combat this monster is through music, with a yellow and orange pattern used as sound waves that keep the "infection" at bay.
Character Design - The heads were designed different than my other works, it doesn't feature a mouth and its front view isn't flat but a cube rotated at 45°. Also the proportions were different; a smaller head head gives more adult look to this characters. All the geomatry has and additional bevel on each edge to soft the geometry just a bit.
Character Design II - Back in 2010 I made a pixel-art fan art cover for the Muse version of "Popcorn"; back in the day I wanted to make a music video for that song with a retro-look but dropped the idea...
Sync - Almost all the shots had the characters in sync with the music; to achieve this I used as reference a "making of " video of the album released as bonus, where you can see the musicians recording his tracks at the studio.
Oscilloscope - When the music spreads, reversing the infection in the climax, the whole city matches the orange color used for the band.... the wave movement simulates a oscilloscope display just like the ones used in music players.
Rigging - The monster and the band used bones and a simple rig. The "human" eyes were animated manually, as polygons. For the city I used a geometry deformer to make the waves.
Animation - All the animation was made in Maya. I splitted the short in 6 sequences with multiple cameras (up to 8) covering the main stage and characters looping to avoid to animate the whole 4 minutes of song erformance.
Rendering - The main renderer used was Mental Ray. The whole short used something close to 5,000 frames.
VFX - After Effects was used for compositing and to add some effects like motion blur and glow.
Editing - All the editing and some transitions were made in Premiere.
Extra - The video is a favorite in the MUSE Vimeo account.
Also available on Youtube
"Animals"
Music by Matthew Bellamy, Dominic Howard and Chris Wolstenholme
Lyrics by Matthew Bellamy
Performed by MUSE
© y ℗ 2012 Warner Music Uk Limited.
The copyright of the music used in this video is owned by Warner Music Uk Limited. A Warner Music Group Company.
©&® 2013 Oscar Triana.
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Thanks for watching!
Follow me and check more artwork on
www.behance.net/oscartriana
Thanks for watching!
Follow me and check more artwork on
www.behance.net/oscartriana
