Music Videos
My animation process has been informed by and inspired by music ever since I was young, so working with music is one of my favorite things. Music, rhythm, and sound are the heartbeat of what I do. From making animated music videos for my favorite songs with Flipnote Studio on my DSi in middle school, to making a music video for “Rafstraumur” by Sigur Rós to explore my After Effects skills in high school, to being commissioned to create stunning music videos for up-and-coming bands like Atlanta indie rock group Koyal and older musicians like Richard March as a college graduate, I keep coming back to this special art form. My approach to music videos is not to just create an aesthetic passively laid over the music, but for the music and visuals to work together as equal forces that enhance what each one does individually, and for the music video itself to be a statement. I work with musicians to truly see where their hearts are and create something that expresses that. As a fellow music-maker, I understand what it’s like to toil away at a song. I see music and animation as deeply connected; they are both lush, complex time-based media, and I am drawn to that connection.
My latest finished works are the video for Koyal's “I Wanna Believe” and the video for Richard March's “Let The Winter Come”, both released this year.
If you are interested in hiring me to make a music video for you, contact me here, email me at merpyfrost@gmail.com, or message me on social media.
Koyal — I Wanna Believe (Winter 2023)
Timeframe: 2 and a half months
Length: about 5 minutes
Client: Koyal, an emerging Atlanta-based indie-rock band
Concept: The narrator longs for an ultimate connection with aliens as a way to escape from their existential terror at the state of the world.
My Work: Concept art, storyboards, editing an animatic, drawing assets, animating complex scenes in After Effects, and touching up and exporting the final animation for the video.
Comments: I loved being able to support an awesome song with striking and creative storytelling visuals that complemented the themes and emotions explored in the music and lyrics. It was a nice challenge to flex my skills and put together a relatively complex project within a relatively short timeframe. This project also taught me a lot about the value of clear communication.
“Why can’t I see you? / A better version of myself / I know you’re there, so show me / You can’t leave me now!”
Raw final animation before the band added their own lyrics animation
The final video with additional lyrics animation by the band
The finalized animatic and storyboards
Richard March — Let The Winter Come (Spring 2023)
Timeframe: 3 months
Length: about 4 minutes
Client: Richard March, a singer-songwriter getting back into the folk scene after his tour with the United States Peace Corps
Concept: Beautiful, painterly landscapes from Northern and Southern California shift season over time. The earth, tired from hot, blistering summer, enters the gentle embrace of cool, rainy, snowy winter.
My Work: Storyboards, concept art, edited an animatic, painted a series of very detailed landscape illustrations in Sketchbook with several different weather variations for each one, animated each landscape and nature scene in After Effects, illustrated wildlife and additional environments and recorded timelapses andspeedpaints of the process to create the feeling of being in the narrator's sketchbook, edited and exported the final video, designed cover and CD art for the song's album.
Comments: This was a fun and unique project. It was wonderful to have the chance to work on a video so focused on nature and landscapes as the main character rather than people. I loved the beauty of working mainly with environmental storytelling and the creativity involved in that. This was an incredibly illustration-heavy project, though, so the illustration and asset painting part of the production was pretty time-consuming. I learned a lot about resilience.
“The song’s gentle calling for the beauty of winter is matched by the beautiful drawings as the video unfolds. It’s a perfect match. ”