The imaginarium performance capture studios have animated and produced coldplays newest music video 'adventure of a lifetime'.
You can't help but smile as you watch 4 apes slightly resembling the 4 well known band members progressively begin to dance around more and more crazier till the end.
In the making of video you get to see in detail how the imaginarium used motion capture apparatus to capture the band members unchoreographed movements as I was most interested to find out in creative review; https://www.creativereview.co.uk/ as after watching the music video it is really surprising to find out such dance moves are spontaneous.
Before watching the making of I was interested how they used motion capture on the band members yet made their movements so ape like as motion capture can't create the illusion of extra long arms. After watching the making of it was great to see how they got round this barrier, running and dancing around holding sticks to add the illusion of monkey arms. The band members perfectly re-created the movement of apes to enhance this illusion even further.
The compositing of the apes is realistic but not too realistic to the point where they don't have their own sense of character and personality mirrored from the personalities of the 4 band members.
The whole landscape design of the jungle is beautiful, ultra realism is captured and composited perfectly. Ending on a beautiful sunset shot, but the monkey waving his arms in the trees to symbolise the adventure is definitely not over yet.
The music video really demonstrates an adventure of a lifetime, but an adventure not of their lifetime as they take the persona of apes which is very interesting.
Whitecross (Director): “So the head of the studio, Ben Lumsden, put together some ideas – we had zombies, rock stars, aliens… and the one avatar everyone went for was the chimp! So we tried one take with the whole band as chimpanzees – and they enjoyed it so much we decided that was the way to go. The incredible thing about performance capture is you can see the characters and the environment already on the screens around you, or through the camera viewfinder. So I wasn’t watching the band, I was watching a group of apes.”
Reading creative review, I found this aspect most fantastic. As the band danced for the music video, they weren't dancing as Coldplay, they were dancing as their ape persona, meaning they could get into the act much easily and feel more confident in their performance.
“On the one hand it’s incredibly liberating, but it’s also easy to get lost. So we decided to only use the camera I operated on the day. It narrowed the possibilities in an interesting way – we thought giving the camera a handheld, natural feel would make the impossible things you were seeing seem more possible. I loved this way of working.”
This natural feel was vital to capture because at the end of the day, there would be no camera rigs in the middle of the jungle, and they are animals in their natural environment, so it is best act like your filming them in the most natural looking way possible.
No comments:
Post a Comment