Janet Jackson: Make Me

Project overview by The Mill:

‘Make Me’ is the new track released from Janet Jackson’s latest album ‘Number Ones’ and The Mill was excited to be asked to enhance the promo for the track with some beat pounding visual effects.

Produced by HSI and directed by Robert Hales, the video is classic Janet. Filmed in her traditional black and white style and choreographed by Gil Duldulao, the focus of the promo was always intended to be on Janet and her dancers. Various geometric shapes moving to the rhythm of the song were added to enhance the look of the performance.

Jimmy Kiddell, 3D artist working at The Mill in London, came up with some initial designs for the shapes and the director ultimately chose to use spikes that echoed the edgy wardrobe worn by Janet and her troupe.

One of the biggest challenges faced by The Mill’s team of artists was the tight deadline that was pushed forwards by two days. A total of 4,600 frames were worked on over just two weeks.

John Leonti, Joint Head of CG in Los Angeles, talks about his role in the project: ‘Many forms of graphical shapes were experimented with and it came down to producing eye catching effects which did not overpower the dancers. It was nice to get so much creative input to this project’.

Chris Bayol, 3D artist, designed and produced all the geometric inserts found within the white walled rooms, a part of the set that was replaced entirely as a CG environment in post. Other set-ups where the environment was successfully shot in camera involved set extension and clean up.

Andy Bate, lead Flame artist, was also able to experiment creatively on the project and created the particles that fly past Janet in the black room. This idea was not part of the original treatment but made the final cut.

A pleasant surprise for The Mill’s team was that Janet came into the LA facility twice to view the final progress of the promo. Krystina Shales, VFX Producer, notes: ‘Janet was extremely complimentary and thankful for what we had done which made all our efforts worthwhile’.

Credits:

Client: Janet Jackson
Title: Make Me
Record Company: UME
Production Company: HSI
Director: Robert Hales
Producer: Oualid Mouaness
Editing Company: Sunset Edit
Editor: Ken Mowe
Post Production: The Mill / Los Angeles
Producer: Krystina Shales
Lead Flame: Andy Bate
Flame Assist: Chris Knight, Nick Tayler, Gavin Camp, Christel Hazard, Cathy Gochnour
3D Supervisor: John Leonti
3D: Chris Bayol, Meng Yeng Lu
Kit: Flame, Maya

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