What happens when a rock song walks into a Japanese cartoon?

This video

The track had an audience that grew up on anime and manga, and the brief was simple to say and hard to do, put the band inside that world

I produced and directed it

The band, the shoot, the look, the blend with the animation and the final cut all ran through one desk, mine

Two worlds, one look

The live action was shot moody, candle lit close-ups of the singer, guitar performance under concert lights

Then the hard part. Instead of cutting back and forth between "real" and "cartoon" like two separate movies, the live footage got graded and blended into the animated world, so it all feels like one place

Hand drawn characters, a crowd of manga faces, a painted forest, portraits that hold still long enough to feel like a page from a comic

And the lyrics come up on screen as big gothic type, moving with the beat

Why mix them at all?

Here is the deal, a fully animated music video costs like a small feature film, months of drawing

A live band alone looks like every other band on the internet

Mix the two and the artist gets a look nobody else has, for a budget that makes sense, right?

Same idea I use in fashion, the clothes are the same, the world you put them in is what people remember

Matching the mood, frame by frame

Color is what holds this together. If the live shots are warmer or colder than the drawings next to them, your eye catches it in half a second and the spell breaks

So every cut gets matched, blues to blues, the candle light pushed toward the animated palette

Is that a lot of work for a three and a half minute song? yes. Does anybody notice when it's done right? no, and that's exactly how you know it worked

The producer in the edit and on the camera

When the person producing is also the one framing the shots, you shoot already knowing what the animation needs next to it, the angle, the lighting, where the character will land

No meeting, no guessing, it's in the viewfinder

More music and promo work is in the Promo gallery and my fashion films in the Fashion Videographer gallery

Rock band, anime world, no passport required

Length: 3 min 33 s · Producer & director: David Victory, VRSET video production, Los Angeles & Orange County

Key moments

  • 0:00 Candle-lit opening
  • 0:26 Guitar performance
  • 0:44 Anime characters
  • 1:02 Manga crowd scene
  • 1:37 Painted forest scene
  • 2:13 Concert lighting and performance
  • 2:46 Animated title typography
  • 3:24 Finale

See the matching photography in the Promo gallery.

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Planning a video or a fashion shoot? Contact David Victory or call (310) 988-6575 in Los Angeles, (949) 873-4551 in Orange County. Free consultation and quote for first-time clients.