“My Own Monster” By X Ambassadors
Haunted by his inner demon, a man's shadow transforms into a cartoon monster and the two of them engage in an old-school dance routine through a world that looks like a cross between Toon Town and Sin City.
This project was a total labor of love for everyone involved, including our post house Mathematic - we couldn't have even attempted this without them. Sam from the band brought me the logline concept of a man's shadow morphing into a cartoon monster and doing a soft-shoe dance routine with him. Then we elaborated the world around him to feel like a cross between Sin City and Toon Town. On our budget we couldn't afford to make the VFX in a 3D way, so from the get go we knew there could be no camera movement - which I liked because it forced us to put all the creative power behind the things that mater: the dance, the world, the content of what's happening; rather than relying on big camera moves as a crutch. We were really inspired by the 80's film, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and wanted to do a similar approach of fusing modern tech with old-school craft. So I put a storyboard of ideas together that focused on clever moments between Sam and his shadow, visually creative vignettes, minimalist designs, and pre-vis'd the whole video beat-by-beat. Then came the choreography which was all put together in an animatic, and we used that as our bible for post. Everything was real specific.
Daniel Iglesias Jr. - Director
Credits
Artist: X Ambassadors
Director: Daniel Iglesias Jr.
Production Company: Stray Dogs
Producer: Phillip Soulliere
Cinematographer: Casey Stolberg
Choreographer: Genna Moroni
1st AC: Aaron Seller
2nd AC: Sophia Harbo
Gaffer: Heath Gresham
Key Grip: Zane Tan
BBE: Arthur Garcia
BBG: Jesse Lee
Electric: Andrew Doward
HMU: Erica Armendariz
PA: Freddie Gardner
Editor: Daniel Iglesias Jr.
Post Production Company: Mathematic
Post Company Owner: Guillaume Marien
Post EP: Guillaume Audibet
Post Assistant Producer: Natasha Pearson
Post Supervisor: Mathieu Bétard
Post Producer: Laura Warnault
VFX Supervisor: Vincent Blin
Shadow Monster Character Design: Boris Zaiontchkovsky
2D Animators: Mathieu Bétard, Faouzi Hamnadi, Kevin Faria, Noémie Mongin, Estelle Bray
Backgrounds: Justine Gasquet, Boris Zaiontchkovsky
Compositing: Mathieu Bétard, Bertrand Avril, Arthur Busson, Adèle Baquiast, Géraud Mottais
Grading: Clément Germain, Michael Bianchi, Vincent Heine
IN/OUT: Nathalie Tramier, Romain Beltran, Maëlle Masson, Adrien Jean-Robert
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