The Human Complex is a progressive metal band from northern Colorado and Wyoming, and their song 'Sectumsempra' is a long, technically complex piece with a deathly tone and an immersive guitar solo. Myself and a group of filmmakers, actors, and artists (mainly from Funky Carrot Productions) joined up with The Human Complex to shoot a music video for their song, and I was tasked with creating motion graphics for the titles (song and band name).
I set out to create pieces that matched the grunge and spectacle of the music video and the song itself, using materials that wouldn't look at all clean or digital.
I'd previously created the band's logo in a flourished calligraphic style, but it needed some motion. I had a broken guitar string from Onyx, the guitarist, left over from production, so I spent a day recording video of its oscillations, experimenting with different patterns, until I found a motion that flickered and blurred together, making the thin string appear as a thick stroked line; creating a visual metaphor for the sound wave itself. I took that video, processed it to remove the background and preserve the oscillations, and applied it as a mask through which the band's logo would appear.
The band title motion graphic
The logo design I'd done for The Human Complex prior to this project
Process shot: the guitar string oscillating after being clumsily plucked by some graphic designer who knows nothing about playing guitar
For the song title, I wanted to create a scratchy, gory look for the type, so I experimented combining various inks and paints with different tools, and landed on a butter knife and black ink, which allowed me to scrawl the song name out on paper in scratchy marks that splattered just a little. I took a live video of the word being drawn on thin paper from underneath, and cleaned it up to create an analog motion type piece.
The song name motion graphic after being edited into the final video
Process shot: the video of the underside of the paper being written on, horizontally reflected, that I processed digitally into the final motion graphic.
The project was a lot of fun to work on, it was a great atmosphere on set and it really solidified my position that I love collaborating with musicians because the creative feedback is so strong.
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