A$AP Rocky - JD Music Video

About 8 months after the release of his May 2015 album At.Long.Last.A$AP, rapper A$AP Rocky recently released the music video to his song "JD". I watched this video when it first came out last week and was captivated by the way that the animation it used was blended with real video footage. It was a style that I haven’t seen very much at all before (although I’m sure it has been done), and I really enjoyed it. This is something that I would like to eventually learn how to do, and it could possibly the topic of one of my future animations of the week. I like the style of the flickering paintbrush strokes that the animation was drawn in, and I found it a lot more engaging than just plain old video. My favorite part of the video however came at about 0:48. The beat drops and makes three distinct thumping sounds, which the video parallels by switching back and forth from animation to video in time with each thump. It matched excellently. and I immediately was drawn in even more for the remainder of the video. Videos like JD are part of what initially got me interested in motion graphics - it’s a way to make the work I’m already doing look significantly more visually appealing. This video was very well done, and I’m definitely going to look into tutorials on the paintbrush animation style that it used.

Stalley's "Go On"

   One of my favorite hip-hop artists is Kyle Myricks aka Stalley. His music videos often involve a story or some kind of animation. This music video is very creative and directed by Walu Mwalilino. I looked into Walu's past work and he directs videos for some of the biggest names in hip-hop. His videos are all very different from each other yet he has a unique style that captivates the audience and creates a story rather than highlight the typical girls, cars, money aspect. He highlights the rappers' lifestyles and brings out the substance in their lyrics. In the Stalley music video, I'm not sure how Walu created the effect of a past body behind Stalley. He may have tracked each movement and created layers so that it appears Stalley is still in one place when he is still moving. I understand how he did the effect when the camera was static but often times, the camera is panning or moving shakily and he still pulls off the effect. I want to look into Walu's work and see if there are any tutorials for the effects he uses because this is one of my favorite music videos.

Walu's Blog