For this video, we decided to create a visualiser in its more traditional sense, but with a Serration Studios twist. The song itself is an aggressive, powerful and lively track. It kicks off right up in your face and doesn’t relent.
The Vocals are scathing, the Guitars are brutal in their emotional delivery.
If the Drums were an athlete, they’d be a heavyweight pugilist with the accompanying Basslines shouting out instructions from the ropes.
Read Music Interview Magazine.com’s review here:
Beseech The Scars: A Prog Metal Playlist And Video Must
As powerful as the song is, what was needed from the video was to keep the focus on the song, while not removing the viewer from the experience. A problem not easily met, but one that was solved.
The idea we arrived at was to give the video a hypnotic feel. The use of clever, yet subtle lighting was introduced to keep pace with the mood of the song and provide visual cues to the viewer.
The pulsating walls were again the genius of blender’s F-curves (fig.1).
The undulating floors were programmed using the same technique, and when it all comes together, it pulls focus into the centrepiece, the Beseech The Scars logo (fig.2).
To keep the viewers captivated, the F-curves were cleverly modified to drift the audience in on a soft wave via the floor (fig.3) with the walls programmed to do the hard-hitting leg work.
This kept it exciting and maintained the momentum (fig.4).
The Back wall then served as a “buffer” to keep the eyes fixated and prevent the view from softening or moving beyond the confines of the room (fig.5).
For the overall look, we wanted to create a sci-fi meets a clean, crisp hospital wall feel inspired by the work of Stanley Kubrick, and the “White Room Torture” cells (fig.6).
It all comes across as welcoming, albeit unsettling.
You are safe in your viewing environment, but are your eyes safe from what you’re being invited to watch, and from what your subconscious conjures up?
The walls are clean and clear, but is your mind creating the images, or are they being presented to you?
The feeling of catharsis and uncertainty weave into the song seamlessly.
We have many other plans to use visualizer’s and look forward to playing with ideas that can be utilised in blender.
This video may have been a quicker turnaround, but it didn’t come without its challenges.
As with many things, often the most simple ideas can be fraught with complications.