MUD
Role: Creative Direction, Illustration, Animation
Artist: Katie Knipp
Published: 2024
Mud is a haunting journey through obsession and madness, set to the bluesy sounds of Katie Knipp’s latest album, Me (2024). Driven by unrequited love, an alcoholic stalker finds herself trapped in a cycle of obsession and madness. Every night she watches from the shadows, each moon pushing her delusions toward a dark fantasy—killing the man she loves to bind them together forever. Katie Knipp's operatic vocals and my dark animation style bring this story to life, creating a visual elegy to the twisted blend of love and vengeance.
With only 2 and 1/2 months to concept, design, and animate an entire music video by myself a top a full time job, this was a challenge that paid off well, with critical acclaim from radio stations across the world upon launch and 10k+ Youtube views within the first few days. Every shot was drawn by hand without the use of AI or any other generative software, aside animated presets provided by AE Juice.
DRAWING A STORY
The most important part of my task as director of this project was to remain truthful to the artist's intent and to strike a vibe that got to the emotional, violent core of the story. I went with black and white to embody the bipolar, emotional state of our main character, and accentuated that vibe with splashes of yellow and red; the former for the liquor that fueled the main character's obsession, and the latter - well, that one's obvious.
SKETCH
When sketching the story out, I thought of each frame where we see the world outside as having very warped architecture - mimicking the inner, drunken state of our stalker character. I thought of her character as having a mask to conceal her identity with a beak long and sharp like a crow that prowls and feasts on a dead body. The inspiration for this costume actually came from the Huntress Eileen from Bloodborne - one of my favorite games of all time.
In between the exterior shots we also catch glimpses of our stalker drinking her life away, shown like pictures of an old album. I thought these might add a feeling of nostalgia, as if we're there with her drowning in her sorrows. I spread these out intentionally with the chorus, as the other frames moved the story - I felt this back and forth progression would not only further the feeling of drunkedness, but also make it feel as if our character is caught inside of a dream - her ultimate fantasy where the goal is pure vengance.
STITCHING THE STORY TOGETHER
Once the illustrations had been created, I had to make sense of them through motion. I wanted to give this constant feeling to the viewer of being caught in a perpetual spiral downward. Eventually, we zoom into the climax and find ourselves witnessing a murder where the victim's life flashes before our eyes as he realizes who the perpetrator was all along.
PAINTING THE FRAMES
Having the benefit of layering these in photoshop, I created a world with a lot of parallax and depth to it, while also keeping my painting style to something that felt scratchy, violent, raw, and hand-crafted. I wanted this world to feel like it was clawed over by some sort of beast that went out on a hunt. Part of me going with this style was out of a sense of practicality too - I didn't have much time to get elaborate with shading, so I chose to only shade anything that was covered by moonlight and keep the rest in darkness.
FINAL COMPOSITING
Funnily enough, this was the easiest step of all. By the time that all other elements were brought into After Effects, I had most of my shot composition and movement already figured out during the animatic phase. I also kept an organized log of every shot, numbered by order of appearance. This made it much easier to quickly edit everything for final delivery.
SOCIALS
Shown below, I put together these two social spots for the artist, along with a longer form Youtube video trailer, which was shown a few weeks before release. Overall, this was a great launch for Katie's newest album at the time, and the video was also played at different venues with her band!
CREDITS
Creative Director & Lead Animator: Nestor Tomaselli
Vocals, Piano & Songwriting: Katie Knipp
Bass & Production: Pancho Tomaselli
Drums: Neil Campisano
Guitar: Chris Martinez
Hammond Organ: Steve Utstein
Trumpet: Justin Au
Trombone: Brandon Au