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universal productions  |  music visualization

 

Home to the most innovative composers, songwriters and producers, Universal delivers music that captures passionate audiences the world over. 

 

Here's how I revitalized a visualization of one of their songs to promote their branding to a younger demographic!

Category

Design, Animation

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Role
Lead Designer, Animator, Sound Designer

 

final deliverable

 

Working through a mixture of 2D & 3D to bring the music to life, with a new spin from the previous album visuals to appeal to animators, designers and more!

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the client

 
 
 
 

The current Universal Production Music user is a producer, editor, or art director. These users are usually male, 40-50 years old. Because of this, Universal is thus looking to expand into a younger, more gender-balanced demographic!

the challenge

 
 

To create a fascinating visualization of one of the new musical releases from the Universal Production Music studio. The animation should visually interpret the music while introducing the name of the release.

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initial pitch

Click to view pitch deck! ⮧

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Styleframes, Storyboards and other proposed sketches - all exploring a cuter and more family-friendly approach to Universal Production's current branding.

 

The Art Director leaned more towards the first option, so we moved forwards with that approach.

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drafting...!

First pass of developing the story further... discussed with other designers to get more ideas on how to make this simple idea more dynamic and fun, so I decided to personify the ingredients more and make them more scared, to make the payoff of the twist more effective!

Another critique was that the first frame felt out of place since it was all simple 2D illustration.. so I revamped it a little more to feel more in tune with the selected style, and added glows and blurs to further make it more dynamic as well!

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Initial 3D

I first got inspired by Wes Anderson's carefully composed scenes, and wanted to bring that same energy into my own with highly controlled cinematic colour grading and intricate sets! 

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Trying new angles & lights...

Moving forwards though, I found that the theme worked more with dramatic shots to push the scariness of the situation (even if it was still in a cute way)

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Final tone of animation

And so here I mixed both together - the intricate, colourful and artistic sets with the dramatic and dynamic angles!

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more development...

I paid extra time to try and fit the aesthetic of a fun, bright and playful Halloween when reworking the 3D scenes, taking time to remodel the tomato & set the scene, as well as make many iterations of lighting set-ups to see which fit the best.

Here is a direct comparison between each stage of development, where I first found that I strayed a little away from the first concept, but brought it back in the last pass, with a renewed and refreshed energy from the additional lighting and texturing!