GORILLAZ: SATURNZ BARZ
Production Designer - Matte Painter
Directed by Jamie Hewlitt and made by Passion Pictures in association with Google Spotlight Stories and Eleven Management, this music video for Saturnz Barz, from the album Humanz, is the latest instalment in the Gorillaz anthology. This project offered a unique challenge as it was not only a blend of 2D and 3D animation techniques, but was also created to be viewed in YouTube 360 and multiple other virtual reality platforms.
My responsibility as production designer was to create concept art which conveyed the overall tone, colour palette, lighting and textures as well as the level of dirt and litter within each set, while maintaining consistency of style throughout the piece as a whole. As the project went on and designs were approved, my role moved into asset creation for the opening shot where I recreated my original artwork at high resolution in order to be animated, as well as graphic design creating fake brands for the train intro and kitchen sequences. I also created matte paintings and supervised an additional matte painter for the backgrounds of the opening and end sequences.
In the closing weeks of the project, I was commissioned to create an additional three animations on my own, to be used as art tracks for three other tracks from the Humanz album. I was given just over two weeks with the brief that I should create pieces which were clearly not new episodes in the Gorillaz storyline, and yet were unmistakably from the same world.
Below is a selection of artwork from each area of the project that I worked on including, of course, the final video. To watch the YouTube 360 version, click here.
All characters illustrated by Jamie Hewlitt. 3D modelling by Alex Holman and Ian Brown. Additional matte painting by Dan Lambert.
Concept art
Grading
