For the release of Multiverse by The Transient Friends, our band's debut full-length album, my creative partner and I dreamed up an experimental concept film to accompany the music. I wore nearly every "hat" at some point, serving as writer, director, production designer, graphic designer, editor, VFX, and as lead actor. The concept for the hourlong, no-budget film centered around dozens of different versions of one character, and the 80s-inspired tracks of the album lent themselves to all manner of retro and sci-fi-inspired settings and visuals, which carried through treatments for each track's title as well as the closing credits. We premiered the resulting film to an audience of friends and fans the same weekend as the album dropped. It was a blast to work on! (2022)
The segment for the track "Sister" was the most graphics-heavy of all, as the television screen keeps changing channels to depict versions of the main character in various different shows, commercials, or settings. One of my personal favorite creations is the fictional Sisters cereal, which was actually composited onto a box of generic cereal in post-production.
Several of the TV graphics were created from modified archival imagery from the Instagram account @80snewsscreens, with tweaks made to help them fit the storyline.
I think I'm most proud of the segment for "Get Away," as all of the car shots are actually footage of a toy car filmed against a TV screen playing a loop of night driving stock footage. The driving footage allowed for very realistic reflections on the sides of the car that really sells the look. Green screen shots of the main character were then composited and masked to make it look like he's driving the car. The fun little license plate was also composited in post, a nod to the band's name. Lastly, all locations are free stock imagery mashed up and animated to give the illusion of depth or movement.
The "Skynet" segment was heavily-inspired by the aesthetic of the Lumon company in the Apple TV series Severance, which had just aired its first season at the time of production.
The closing credits were soundtracked by the album's lead single, "Freak Out," and utilized shifting focus and blurs along with rotating animation to emulate our slightly-askew journey through the shattering multiverse.
Watch the full film here!