F  L  A  U  N  T

In this era of change, it’s so paramount to be nimble and learn how to adapt while still continuing to create. That’s just what creative directors Dyan Jong and Annie Stoll have done in collaboration with Japanese rock star MIYAVI for his latest music video in support of his recently released album HOLY NIGHTS.

The animated music video explores the looming death of live performances as we know it and depicts a world that has abandoned nature and life, and the climate portrayed doesn’t feel too divergent from the one we are living in today: a global lockdown that has aided towards technological enslavement, certainly creating a feeling of universal restlessness, or “Need for Speed” - the title of the song. 

As director David Cihelna details: “We used a game engine called Unity3D and volumetric capture to build everything in 3D from the ground up. The technique is known as ‘Virtual Production’ and is a fast-growing sector of the gaming and film industry. It's been gaining traction due to the pandemic, as one of the benefits is that it's almost completely remote, which enabled us to produce this music video with an international team. The only physical shooting we did was to record 3D footage of the artist's movements, which took place in a Tokyo volumetric capture studio called 4DViews. The capture studio uses dozens of cameras to record video that is then processed into frame-by-frame 3D models played back in the Unity game engine. The rest of the production (99%) was all virtual - we brought in a cinematographer, vfx artists, and colorist to work directly in the Unity game engine for camera movements, lighting, set design, VFX, color.”

Director: David Cihelna

Creative Directors: Dyan Jong + Annie Stoll

Producers: Derek Frampton Davis + Ryota Hamada for Mothership Tokyo

Editor: Kotaro Shinagawa

Consulting Cinematographer: Stefano Ferrari

VFX Artists: Manuel Mora, Eric Davis

Colorist: Gabe Sanchez

Car courtesy of BMW, sponsor