Bomper gives Foo Fighters an extravagant Celtic look in "Chasing Birds" MV

Welsh CGI and animation house Bomper Studio are behind the new acid-rich music video for "Chasing Birds" by legendary rock group Foo Fighters. The video is a stylized desert journey brought to life with kaleidoscopic hybrid animation.

After working on the music video for "No Son of Mine", Bomper Studio was approached by RCA looking for a whimsical film for the dreamy and engaging track "Chasing Birds". Described as "weird and sweet" by keyboardist Rami Jaffee, the initial brief was to explore the motifs within the song by taking the band on a psychedelic and technicolor journey; reminiscent of the Beatles Yellow submarine.

Taking a cure from the psychedelic art movement of the 60s, the film is a 2D / 3D animated hybrid film that follows the Foo Fighters on a fantastical journey through a colorful desert, filled with dreamy and surreal imagery. However, as the band explores this vibrant utopia, things begin to take a dark turn as they fall across Earth in a hallucinatory hell landscape, filled with increasingly bizarre distortions of wildlife.

Production ran from February to April 2021. Director Emlyn Davies and co-director Josh Hicks worked to develop a story set in these shocking environments; filled to the brim with wacky visuals and animations. The chosen setting was a landscape reminiscent of the Sonoran desert; often a shortcut in the narratives of existential isolation, where the characters can get lost mentally at the mercy of the elements. What starts out as a barren, uninterrupted landscape also offered the team a blank screen to project their fantasies onto, taking whatever is normally seen and turning it upside down.

Being a huge fan of 60s psychedelic art, Bomper leaned on this as a starting point for style through flat colors, bold outlines, distinct shapes. The team also sought to incorporate additional whimsical styles from designs by Victor Moscoso and Peter Max: richly saturated colors in striking contrast, swirling patterns, repetition and surrealism.

To achieve the style, Bomper used Arnold for rendering as it was better suited for the key line approach. Cinema 4D was used for all rigging, animation, modeling and texturing operations; other than Zbrush which was used for the character sculptures. For the characters, achieving similarity within the style was the key, without pushing towards caricature. For this, the team looked to 70s celebrity animation, such as the Hanna-Barbera cartoons, especially the Scooby Doo episodes with guest celebrities.

Inspired by their work with Colonel Tony Moore on Tyler Childers' "Country Squire", Bomper employed a technique called "Chicken Fat Storytelling"; pack shots with jokes to make viewing more enjoyable and rewarding. Fans may notice references to Foo Fighters' past work such as "Everlong", "Monkey Wrench", "Pretender" and "DOA".

To really push the psychedelic and experimental tune, Bomper employed a number of techniques used such as cutaways and vignettes for the larger composition. This included face and body deformations to create otherworldly characters and illusions, end effects, lip sync in unexpected places, and abstract liquid effects. The film plays with the proportions, jaw-dropping hues and shape of cartoons through animation that squeezes, stretches and breaks; at the end by delivering a film taken directly from the subconscious.

The music video was released for April 20 and is available online on YouTube and Foo Fighters' social media platforms.

www.bomperstudio.com