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Rio Vero releases the music video for their single Carry On, taken from their first EP. We interviewed Alban Diedrichs, who directed the music video, about the making of this project.
Here is the music video, followed by our interview with Alban.
3DVF: Hello Alban, you directed the music video for Carry On by Rio Vero, which has just been released. How did you get in touch with the band?
Hello, It’s a real pleasure to discuss my work on this music video on 3DVF!
I already knew Baptiste, one of the members of the band, before the creation of Rio Vero. After the first lockdown back in 2020, he told me about this new concept that was born during these very strange times. There were already some bold musical projects, as well as this idea of a beekeeper character!
I had recently started working in the animation industry, and this peculiar character was just begging to live a beautiful story.
The music video, Carry On, was initially supposed to be a short teaser, just a few seconds long. We got carried away, the story would evolve as we were talking about the project and as I was bringing new visual ideas.
3DVF: What was the size of the team, and how long did it took you to create the music video?
I directed this music video alone. The script grew as I was discussing it with the band, which gave me a lot of creative freedom! Then everything was done on my desk, from the creation of the storyboard to color correction. Working alone on this project pushed me to anticipate right from the start what could be done or not. I had to find tricks and ideas while at the same time creating a nice story.
It took almost a year to create the music video. I was working on it depending on how much spare time I had. But this allowed me to do some tests, to toy with a few things, to do some R&D… That’s a part of animaton I love as well!
3DVF: You decided not to create a photorealistic music video. Why, and how difficult was it to achieve a look you were satisfied with?
When I started working on the music video, Rio Vero had already released another one, shot in live action. This character with a yellow jumpsuit was already there.
We wanted to bring this character somewhere else, in another universe. Using animation allowed us to bring something else, while keeping the core elements of the character.
I also liked the idea of creating a story with just a few simple elements.
Even if I used a stylized approach when it comes to modeling and some of the textures, I kept this volume, these spaces and lights that are made possible by using CG, and that I love. I find space, emptiness very poetic, fascinating. And CG is the perfect tool to explore it!
It took me a while to find this specific visual style. I also explored other approaches, more stylized and colorful. I ended up with this specific style after I saw an exhibit by photographer Stéphane Lavoué. A darker and more plain background helps highlighting the character.
3DVF: Can you tell us about the various characters and the animation? Which ones were the most complicated to handle, and why?
The main character already existed, as I explained, but he was the most complicated character to create. This animated version has its own identity, and at the same time it doesn’t betray the original character. I toyed with the textures which are more reflective and colorful. At the same time, the animation is quite realistic. And the yellow jumpsuit required cloth simulations, handled within Marvelous Designer. Everything else was done using Blender.
As for the insects, the music video wasn’t supposed to include any bee! Then I told myself that I should add a few traveling companions for the main characters. Once the bee was added, creating the other insects was quite fast. I wanted to add some visual diversity, while keeping the bee front and center.
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to talk about my work on this music video!
3DVF: Thanks, Alban ! And to our readers: you can follow Alban on Instagram if you don’t want to miss his next projects!
