Click 3x Creates VFX for "Psychedelic" Living Things Video

Click 3x created an animated rock poster populated by the Living Things as well as many other curious creatures in providing visual effects and animation services for Bom Bom Bom, the band’s first video from its debut release Ahead of the Lions on Jive Records. Visual effects artist Mark Szumski, reminiscent of the colorful rock artwork of the 1970s.

In the video, heavily textured and colorized images of the band are layered over psychedelic background graphics and animated circus imagery, including elephants, camels and marching bands. Many of the visuals have a hallucinatory feel as a semi-nude woman looms over the skyline of a city with lions lounging on rooftops. “I wanted the video to have a psychedelic, storybook kind of feel,” explained Sigismondi, “extremely colorful yet touching on some dark and serious issues.”

Szumski pieced it all together from live action performance elements shot by Sigismondi and stock material gleaned from the Web and other sources. “Floria also provided us with some incredible graphic elements created by the British illustrator Steve Wilson,” noted Szumski. Wilson’s work, featured on Neiman-Marcus shopping bags, MTV and elsewhere, itself draws on rock artwork and circus imagery and was one of the inspirations for the video, Szumski added.

For Szumski, the biggest challenge lay in choreographing the profusion of imagery in a coherent and meaningful way, and devising clever transitions between scenes. “We wanted to take it beyond the idea of a simple two-dimensional rock poster aesthetic, which would have been rather limiting,” he said. “Instead, we layered things in three dimensional space which both made the look more interesting and opened up possibilities for more effects .”

In the video’s wild finale, the band appears on a stage with Living Things frontman Lillian Berlin in stilts. Acrobats twirl overhead; horses, camels and zebras dance on stage; fireworks explode and confetti falls from above. “I have never worked so hard on a project in my life,” said Szumski, “but I’ve also never had so much fun.”

The results, said Sigismondi, by far exceeded her expectations. “Mark worked beyond the hours and dedication I expected and it really shows,” she said. “He is fast, but cares about the details.”

Click 3X is located at 16 West 22nd Street, New York, NY 10010. For more information, call (212) 627-1900, or visit www.click3X.com.(go here to see the video)


Living Things “Bom Bom Bom” Credit List

Band: Living Things (Lillian Berlin, Eve Berlin, Bosh Berlin)

Production Company Revolver Film Company
Director Floria Sigismondi
Executive Producer Jannie McInnes
Executive Producer Kelly Norris Sarno
Director Rep Niva Chow
Producer Merrie Wasson
Production Manager Brian Fletcher
DP Tico Poulakakis
Art Director Sue Tebbutt
Wardrobe Stylist Carol Beadle
Make-up/Hair Pamela Neal
Editor Jaron Albertin
Illustrator Steven Wilson (Pearce Stoner Associates)

Visual Effects : Click 3x
FX / Animation Mark Szumski
Exec. Producer/Partner Jason Mayo

Add’l Animation Tronic Studio
Susan Armstrong (567VX)

Online Fini Films