HOLES

As part of my Final Major Project in my final year at university, I decided to put my animation skills to the test by creating a hybrid animation combining my 2D skills and 3D skills as well as my two greatest passions: music and animation. This was a collaborative project as the song for this music video was made thanks to students from the Popular Music Department, specifically Harry Robinson on the drums, James Maxwell on bass, Holly Box providing the mixing and Morgan Mvula producing and providing guitar. I wrote and sung the lyrics alongside Morgan.

The plot of the music video was simple:

A young man living at home with his father struggles with intrusive thoughts and battles his mind as he is roped figuratively and literally into holes, finding it hard to distinguish from mindscape and reality.

The song and the music video itself are both meant to be a representation of Pure O, and how people like myself can experience the world when struggling with intense intrusive thoughts. To better illustrate this struggle, the animation was made to be surreal by combining 2D rotoscoped character animation with 3D cel-shaded backgrounds. I chose this to create an uncanny feel to better suit the horror elements of the music video and symbolise the discomfort that comes with Pure O. I designed the environment entirely in Maya using my own home as reference, making sure to capture every minute detail. I filmed all the reference videos and completed redrawing half of them in Adobe Animate and the other half using advanced filtering in After Effects. The use of them depended on the discomfort the main character was experiencing.

The animation was a huge success, receiving great praise from my peers but also gaining international attention from animation festivals worldwide, even receiving Best Music Video in the Critics' Choice International Film Festival back in July 2023. It was published on my YouTube channel, TheSammyGShow, on 13th October 2023 and has currently gained over 500 views.