NEW YORK — What initially appears to be another day in the bustling life of New York City’s Madison Square Park turns out to be the stage for a compelling, coming-of-age life story of a colorful Gaudiesque art installation. Production company Aggressive conveyed the themes of self-reliance and discovery in the song from Susan Justice by using time-lapse photography as a narrative device.
Secret signs of the sculpture’s life, normally hidden from the outside world, become apparent when seen in gorgeous fast-forward: tiny spider webs are torn by a barely noticeable movement of the figure’s concrete fingers, a metal eye blinks to look at Susan.
Living in its own slower, plant-like reality, the installation is never quite able to cross the temporal barrier into the human world. To visualize the passage of time as seen from the sculpture’s perspective, Aggressive filmed time-lapse footage plates on location, employing a range of cameras from the Arri Alexa to Canon 5Ds mounted on motion-control sliders. Lighting references were captured throughout to ensure the photorealism of the installation, executed entirely in computer graphics (CG). Throughout the video, the sculpture pays dearly for its curiosity, but ultimately overcomes the obstacles.
In the closing shots of the film, the figure moves in real time as its fingers come alive and strum the strings of Susan’s guitar. It finishes the song, and finally interacts with the human world. “Eat Dirt” represents the first music video release for Susan Justice, a rising star in the US music scene on Capitol Records, where she keeps good company with such artists such as Coldplay, Danger Mouse, Katy Perry, and David Guetta.
Credits:
Production company: Aggressive
Director: Alex Topaller, Dan Shapiro
Executive producer: Alex Topaller, Dan Shapiro
Director of photography: Damian Acevedo
Editor: Tim Zimmer, Jason Yantz
Line producer: Arthur "Micah" Ross II
Additional time-lapse photography: Josh Owens
Color correction: Rob Sciarrata
Original statue design: Anthony Francisco Schepperd
Storyboard artist: Rolo Ledesma
VFX done by Snowball VFX / Aggressive
Creative director: Alex Topaller, Sagi Zamoshchick
Project manager: Bat Chen Natan
Layout & effects: Natan Ivan
Rigging & effects: Matan Halberstat, Aviv Bar-Ami
Modeling: Sagi Zamoshchick
Rendering: Omer Erlich, Tomer Epstein
Animation: Naor Levi, Uri Alonim
Shading: Chen Hillel
Compositing: Alex Topaller, Sagi Zamoshchick
Additional compositing: Elad Barness, Amit Chechek