Thankfully, he was patient and trusting that I was doing something he would like. I made that choice because the way the video is structured it lends itself to be viewed as a whole for maximum impact instead of spoiling it in bits. I sent a few behind the scenes of unfinished animated line art but kept the video mostly a mystery. I was at home in Chicago, and Aktive was DJing in Las Vegas for Janet Jackson. How closely did you work with DJ Aktive? How often were you showing him scenes? Was that done remotely? All coincidence! Life imitates art imitates life. That was imagined months before, and then literally the last 76ers game before coronavirus shut down the NBA, Freeway was asked to ring the bell, and he shared it on social media right before the music video release. On top of that, there’s another animated scene wherein Freeway is hammering a bell at the 76ers arena to open an NBA game, a new tradition for Philly natives before each game.
It’s a great example of a best-case-scenario marriage between information and entertainment.Ī funny thing about that scene is that a few days before the video was released, Freeway shared an Instagram video of himself at a kidney health awareness event playing with a life size Operation-style game. I thought, what’s the most efficient and appealing way to get this across to the audience? Since the board game Operation is ubiquitous across generations, when you watch the video, you get it right away, and because it’s unexpected, it demands a smile. In real life, he had kidney failure and received a transplant - a serious thing, no doubt. My intention was to tell Freeway’s actual story quickly and lightly. Can you talk about how that idea came about? I love the section of the video that gives a nod to the game Operation.
ADOBE CHARACTER ANIMATOR MOUTH TEMPLATE PRO
Next, I brought them into Premiere Pro to stitch it together. For different scenes, I performed specific movements and exported them out of Character Animator as Mov video files with an alpha channel. Once the lipsync was right, I used my Mac’s camera to motion track their head turns and expressions using my own head and face. After that, I laid down the acapella to the song and recorded the heads moving their mouths to the track using Character Animator’s audible lipsync method.īecause it was rap audio and not normal speech audio, I had to spend some time doing specific tweaks, so the mouth movements matched with the vocals. Then, I brought those into Character Animator and rigged them so they moved how I wanted. For each of those views, I drew 14 different mouth positions. These were in forward-facing views, three-quarter views and profile views. I designed and drew multiple head positions in Adobe Photoshop for each vocal artist: Common, Freeway and Bri Steves. I generally try to stay as close as I can to the initial ideas unless something is undeniably better or it’s technically necessary to make a change.Ĭan you walk us through how you created the lipsync, face-tracking and movements? How did you decide this would be the best way to tackle all of that, and how challenging was this? It’s an organic process, and I think it brings the most truth to a presentation because it’s unfiltered. I normally listen to a song and storyboard a video as quickly as I can think, almost as if I’m “writing” down pictures instead of words. So, I was involved as early as possible.Īssuming you did previz/storyboards? Can you talk about this part of the process? With that, I went ahead and made the video. They also wanted me to work on that song. I chose the song “The City” featuring Common, Freeway, Bri Steves and DJ Jazzy Jeff as a standout. Mike sent me Aktive’s album, which is composed of songs he produced with Ivan “Orthodox” Barias and features many artists Aktive has worked with. He spins for Janet Jackson, Alicia Keys, Nas, Kanye, Common, Puffy and more. I was contacted to make the video by Michael McArthur, who manages DJ Aktive, who is an incredible DJ and producer from Philly.
How early on did you get involved in the video? Concept stage? He relied heavily on Adobe’s Character Animator and the rest of the Adobe suite. Rok completed The City, from start to finish, by himself during a two-month period. It’s all very bright, colorful and cinematic. Finally, there is Jazzy Jeff, spinning the globe like a turntable. Another Philly artist, Bri Steves, raps some more about the City of Brotherly Love, and that transitions to Common in his hometown of Chicago. The viewer is then taken on a tour of Philadelphia, with locations including the Liberty Bell and animated recreations of the Eagles winning the Super Bowl. We then see rapper Freeway moving from one upside-down city building to another, like a kid working the handlebars at a playground.
The video begins with spinning heads of the featured artists transitioning to the spinning of an LP by DJ Aktive.
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