Budderside - Ghostlighting
Budderside is a Los Angeles hard metal band for whom Hard Fork created a lyric video, making the song's lyrics the narrative focus.
We told the story in the first person, moving through illustrated 360-degree scenes to achieve the result within a tight budget.
Context
Budderside needed a lyric video for its song, with a limited production budget.
Problem
The budget did not allow for extensive hand animation or a lengthy production process.
Objective
Tell the song's story visually while keeping its lyrics front and center.
Approach
A first-person video built around illustrated 360-degree environments, with simplified animation within each scene.
Challenge
We needed to visualize the abstract feeling of confinement described in the lyrics without making it so literal that the song lost its emotional weight. The video had to follow the lyrics' rhythm and meaning without competing with them, allowing viewers to feel the story through the visual journey rather than having the images explain it to them.
Solution
We devised a first-person journey through a series of 360-degree illustrated environments. The line work and limited color palette were tailored to the project's resources, avoiding unnecessary complexity in the illustration process and keeping the lyrics at the heart of the visual concept.
Rather than animate every shot from scratch, we used looping animation and a few carefully chosen effects within those environments. Production came down to two main steps: design each 360-degree scene and animate only the elements it needed.
Results
The result is a visually striking video that tells a story without losing sight of its central aim: keeping the song's lyrics in the spotlight.
