Heavy Metal Matt Frodsham had already had experience creating music videos, but the project 'From Hell' presented completely new challenges - that he was able to master with the help of Maxon Cinema 4D.

‘From Hell’ is a band whose music is not for the faint-hearted. They combine hard metal music with lyrics that are just as hard, which can also be aimed at clergy or the Catholic Church. The band and their label went on a search for an artist who could create a video in the style they wanted and found Matt, who just happened to have some time available and decided to take on this challenging project. Matt had already worked on music videos in the past, which he considered to be very elaborate. But Matt thought that the song ‘Holy War’ was interesting and thought it would be an exciting project to work on – a welcome contrast to his previous work. Matt corresponded with the client until the project had been successfully defined and got to work. Since the video’s overall look and mood had been defined and Matt was given the creative freedom for the rest, he decided to try out several new techniques.

Contrary to most other projects, this project’s premise was quantity over quality, which was due to the large amount of work on the one hand and the tight deadline on the other. Twelve different animals had to be modeled, textured, rigged and animated! Most of the modeling was done in Cinema 4D, whose Sculpt and UV painting features were used extensively. The final look was created using Coat 3D, after which Matt was able to start with rigging. He used Cinema 4D’s Character object, with which he was able to quickly add joints to all twelve models and animate them. The types of animals ranged from cockroaches to a skeleton horse and millipedes. In addition to the various character objects’ rigs, the automatic weighting feature also made Matt’s life easier. “Since the video’s scenes had to be cut very quickly, I didn’t have to add too much detail to the joint regions and the automatic weighting was perfect for this purpose”, explains Matt.

Despite extensive planning and efficient modeling, the scenes nevertheless ended up being very large, which is why Matt created low-poly proxy models for all animated scenes in order to set up the animations in realtime. Matt used the Sculpt feature and a Python script, which was written by a friend, to create several unique animation sequences. The Python script was used to sequentially display or hide separate sculpt layers for animation, which produced a very unique look, similar to Claymation.

This project was indeed a unique challenge and a welcome change from his usual work. The new techniques he was forced to try out made it possible for him to extensively test Cinema 4D’s new functions and create completely new effects. “Again, Cinema 4D proved that it’s packed full of functions that leave almost nothing to be desired,” concludes Matt. “Without such a reliable tool, it would be impossible to create a 2-minute video filled to the brim with character animation in just 3 months. Especially considering the fact that I completed several other projects during this time as well!”

Matt Frodsham’s Website:
www.mattfrodsham.com

Website for video:
fromhell.bandcamp.com