The Briefing Room

The Brief:

Click 3X continues a run of recent success in the world of music, providing effects for indie band Animal Collective‘s recent virally-distributed hit video, Peacebone. The video represented a true creative collaboration between Click 3X and director, Timothy Saccenti, who originally approached the company to help execute his eclectic macabre vision. The company‘s reputation for producing these unique effects has been quickly expanding, as directors continue to turn to Click‘s VFX team to help shape creative concepts into tangible visual art.

Commenting on the process, CG Artist Tom Hurlburt of Click 3X notes, “Working on a cool indie project is a really great complement to our big-brand commercial work. Tim (Saccenti), had a pretty interesting vision how he wanted the effects to work and we all collaborated to come up with some cool ideas to make it happen.” Click‘s Mark Szumski, who also lent his Flame talents to the project, comments, “The director was already familiar with Click‘s work and approached Tom and I with his idea for the video–we both thought it was a great opportunity to be involved with a unique niche of film-style design and effects.”

The video showcased Click 3X‘s capability of doing the heavier character CG and VFX compositing, as the team was challenged with creating a CG creature with the right look and movements to match the unique style of the shoot. This created a challenge in both lighting and animation. To solve the problem, the effects team restricted the lights to match those on set and incorporated a restricting 3D animation rig to mimic the constraints of a real animatronic rig–giving the CG creature imperfect and non-fluid movement.

Animal Collective is a popular folk band currently out of Brooklyn that has found significant global grass roots following their recently-released Peacebone video. The clip pays stylistic reverence to an indie horror-film genre and has already generated significant online interest. Showing their range across music design and effects, Click 3X also recently completed the VFX-heavy video for Mark Ronson‘s mega-hit Stop Me, as well as working on the art design for Ozzy Osbourne‘s new album.

Visit Click 3X: www.click3x.com

View Work: Media Center

The Creds:

Artist: Animal Collective

Song: Peacebone

Air Date: August 2007

Prod Company: Zooma Zooma

Director: Timothy Saccenti

DP: Jeff Shepherd

Editor: Ryan McKenna

Creature Designer: DopePope

Post/Effects: Click 3X, NY

Lead VFX/Inferno Artist: Mark Szumski

CG: Tom Hurlburt

EP: Jason Mayo

Telecine: The Mill

Colorist: James Bamford

ABOUT Click 3X:

Click 3X produces cutting-edge visual solutions for advertising, broadcast, and entertainment clients around the globe. Founded in 1993, New York-based Click 3X has become the preeminent digital studio led by artists and supported by the most advanced technology in the industry. With award-winning design, powerful visual effects, and a visionary animation team, Click 3X lends both its talent and resources to a wide range of both innovative and influential projects.

For more info, ping TRUST:

646.452.3388 (NY) | 310.451.5153 (LA) | trustcollective.com