13/11/2024
Full video: https://youtu.be/NxtGYoOAO18?feature=shared
We wanted to tell some sort of story with the HMN music video, but we had limited time to pick and optimize virtual backgrounds for virtual production. We had a loose idea of the story as we started shooting over 4 days that were often spread out, but we didn't know how everything fit yet, so we shot the whole song through multiple times from different angles in all of the virtual environments--something we wouldn't have had time to do if we were shooting in real world locations. It wasn't until we started cutting everything together that showed us how the puzzle pieces really fit together cohesively, and sometimes that kind of serendipity can yield better results and energy than if you tried to script and plan out every shot meticulously.
The Hit Me Now music video extensively used a custom dynamic smart lighting system that we had set to update and change dynamically with the environments. This not only allowed us to save time re-lighting the band with each background change, but it also allowed us to have lightning effects that flashed in sync with the LED wall during Tom's solo in the storm. We had the lights trigger both with lightning that originated in Unreal Engine that was visible on the LED wall, as well as video clips of real world lightning.
