The OK Go musical group is recognized for its innovative musical videos. Two decades ago they became viral with their particular dance about running ribbons, already over the years has resorted to various artistic techniques and different aesthetic resources, such as Slow Motion, the synchronized recording with smartphones or planes sequence with robots, to illustrate their songs. And for his last topic, entitled “Impulse Purchase”, he has opted for animation Open Source (open source).
The band has collaborated with the animators Lucas Zanotto (previously) and Will Anderson, together with the audiovisual study Blender Studio, to create a video clip of the current era of collaboration and digital communication. It is characterized by having been generated from the capture of real -time movement of the face of singer Damien Kulas.
The piece presents Caricaturesque characters typical of Lucas Zanotto’s style, which rolls, bounced and explode in a universe full of geometric shapes. The avatars respond directly to the movements of their eyes, lips and head of the group members, as shown at the beginning and end of the video clip, with details on how the movement capture software was applied.
The video is an open project, which means that the production files and resources are available for Blender Studio subscribers to explore, analyze and learn from them. The study itself invites users to download it for free and follow the instructions to configure the software on the computer and start creating. To record, a high -end relative smartphone is required, regardless of being Android or iOS.
In this sense, as the creators have shared with the It’s Nice That platform, a free application of live facial movement capture on iPhone was connected with Damian’s face, and joined the Blender software, which provided the filmmakers with a file to change the character’s parameters, providing it with happy and surprising rhythms, all generated from real time reactions.
“It is not about creating the most perfect and polished animation, it is about overcoming the limits, surprise, fun and get involved in the process. The result is unpredictable and organic, almost as seeing how an impulse takes shape in real time ”animator Will Anderson commented.
On the other hand, from Ok Go ensure that the issue is inspired by a reflection on the digital and automated world we live. “We wrote this song for robots – or, at least, for any being that can come after humanity. And if a song for robots did not have an accompanying robot figure to travel in a robot world to the robot song …”, Have commented on social networks.
Singer Damien Kulash has expanded this idea during his participation in a podcast. He says that “Impulse Purchase” is a song written for algorithms, for beings who will live after humans, and questions whether robots and algorithms can really appreciate music. He says that in the last minutes of human existence, they wanted to leave a beautiful song for robots.
