The Shallows – Honestly

This is our new video for the amazing London-based indie rock band, The Shallows.

Building on some of the themes of our previous video for Cara Sebastian’s ‘Wolves’, this time we’re inside the dystopian city for a simple/epic animated action adventure. 😉

We wanted to deliberately create an alternative interpretation of the song, allowing the band to retain their mystery. The general vibe is that the Earth is ‘all we have’ and that quitting would be letting it go to… pot. Perhaps beyond the point of any return. We also really like the idea that picking up something random in the street could cause an apocalyptic flood. 😉

It was made almost entirely in After Effects, mixing 2D character animation inside a 3D World (made possible using Video Copilot’s Element 3D plugin and mostly bespoke models made in open-source 3D app, Blender). There’s a whole load of Red Giant/Trapcode stuff going on in there, too – Particular, Colorista, Lux, Horizon, SoundKeys, Magic Bullet Looks, Psunami…

It was also the first time we’ve used the incredible DuIK system for character animation. We’ll be using it a lot more in future!

Our usual style is to mix live-action with animation, so this is the first time we’ve done an entirely animated piece (outside of a few idents).

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