2014年VMA视觉效果设计团队专访（转）【全英机翻】

八卦谈佚名 ▪ 2023-04-18 09:13:52

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Since its proverbial blast-off, MTV has provided a visual language and soundtrack to the lives of generations. Once a radical entertainment concept, the channel has evolved from ‘music television’ to a global identity. No longer just a 24-hour music network, MTV is a brand in flux.

自从众所周知的爆发以来，MTV 为几代人的生活提供了视觉语言和配乐。该频道曾经是一个激进的娱乐概念，现已从“音乐电视”演变为全球性的标识。MTV不再只是一个 24 小时的音乐网络，而是一个不断变化的品牌。

Ask a person on the street which MTV they grew up with and each will recount something different. When it comes down to it, everyone has their own MTV. Whether yours was Madonna writhing around in a wedding dress or Miley Cyrus’s tongue-out tweaking (so long, modesty!), one thing is true…

We’ve all watched the VMAs.

全文转自 https://motionographer.com/2014/09/03/elastic-mtv-video-music-awards-2015-case-study-interview/

Each year, the show is beamed to the masses, dressed up in the finest graphic duds. Indeed, visual messaging for the VMAs has taken many forms, with quirky broadcast graphics of days past, to the elegant, cross-platform expereince that it is today.

In keeping with MTVs tradition of cool, the VMAs must be in a constant state of reinvention. Every year, the look needs to be “on-brand” but also play against expectations. For that, MTV needs creative blood.

SOLUTION: Call Patrick Clair.

In a style as beautiful as it is haunting, this years VMAs were crafted around an artistic direction that was both simple and effective. Alongside Elastic and a bad-ass troupe of designers, Clair conceived the visual packaging for the event, working closely with MTV senior executives to develop a universal aesthetic.

以一种既美丽又令人难以忘怀的风格，今年的 VMA 围绕既简单又有效的艺术方向精心制作。与Elastic 和一群糟糕透顶的设计师一起，Clair 构思了此次活动的视觉包装，并与 MTV 高级管理人员密切合作，以开发一种普遍的审美。

The concept had far reach. In a 360 degree campaign, the visuals touched everything—even environmentally—where stage, lighting and architecture came together to synthesize a stunning visual harmony.

这个概念影响深远。在一个 360 度的活动中，视觉效果触及了一切——甚至是环境——舞台、灯光和建筑结合在一起，合成了令人惊叹的视觉和谐。

Of course, we wanted to know more, so we asked the people who ought to know.

Big thanks to Patrick Clair and Lead designer/Animator, Raoul Marks of Elastic, who helped shed light on the genesis from simple idea to concept at work. The following is presented as a case-study, featuring supplemental media to help present the show as an across-the-board experience.

FROM CREATIVE DIRECTOR PATRICK CLAIR

来自创意总监 PATRICK CLAIR

The concentric ring device seen throughout the graphics was translated to the physical stage and set design of the show. Did Elastic work in tandem with a team to develop the environmental experience of the live event?

整个图形中看到的同心环设备被转化为演出的物理舞台和 布景设计。Elastic 是否与团队合作开发现场活动的环境体验？

Lee Lodge is the executive producer of the VMAs – and he had the core insight that circles was a singular, compelling concept to focus the entire event. The inspiration was simple – the awards were being held in Inglewood at The Forum, an iconic circular arena. Lee has the rare gift of combining good taste, a deep visual vocabulary and a practical understand of how good design is made. He’s also a pleasure to work with and razor sharp.

Lee Lodge 是 VMA 的执行制片人——他的核心洞察力是圈子是一个单一的、引人注目的概念，可以集中整个活动。灵感很简单——颁奖典礼在英格尔伍德的标志性圆形竞技场 The Forum 举行。Lee 拥有罕见的天赋，将品味、深刻的视觉词汇和对如何制作出优秀设计的实际理解结合在一起。他也很高兴与他一起工作并且非常锋利。

In the first briefing, we looked together at some circular motifs from early Antibody projects, and we quickly found a direction that we felt could work across stage and screen. From there, we ped into developing a logo of striking circular forms, while Lee’s team searched across inspirational architectural installations to drive the design of their set and staging. As the logo direction firmed up, our team, lead by creative powerhouse Raoul Marks, began exploring in 3D.

在第一次简报中，我们一起研究了早期抗体项目中的一些圆形图案，我们很快找到了一个我们认为可以跨舞台和银幕工作的方向。从那里，我们开始着手开发一个引人注目的圆形标志，而 Lee 的团队则搜索了鼓舞人心的建筑装置，以推动他们的布景和舞台设计。随着徽标方向的确定，我们的团队由创意巨头 Raoul Marks 领导，开始探索 3D。

The key direction was this – we needed a two-phase design. I wanted something minimalist, striking, simple, monochromatic for the show logo and core packaging. We looked at high-contrast white worlds, and deep dark black environs marked by glossy reflections. Everything was about circular motion and radial energy – and we constantly fought to find the balance between controlled graphic symmetry and chaotic disruptive forces.

关键的方向是——我们需要一个两阶段的设计。我想要一些极简、醒目、简单、单色的展示标志和核心包装。我们观察了高对比度的白色世界，以及以光泽反射为标志的深黑色环境。一切都与圆周运动和径向能量有关——我们一直在努力寻找受控图形对称性和混乱破坏力之间的平衡。

Through-out the show, we had saturation branding of the black and white logo across the stage and the graphics – but there was also long video content needed to present each category and showcase the music videos at the heart of this years show. This minimalist packaging needed a counterpoint. We looked at generative art, slitscans, processing – something that could capture the energy, pace and colours of the nominees.

在整个节目中，我们在舞台和图形上使用了黑白标志的饱和品牌 - 但也需要长视频内容来展示每个类别并展示今年节目的核心音乐视频。这种极简主义的包装需要一个对位。我们研究了生成艺术、狭缝扫描、处理——可以捕捉被提名者的能量、节奏和色彩的东西。

Raoul’s team R&D’d a technique of spinning music visuals out into chaotic yet beautiful 3D structures that used displacement maps to distill the energy and pixel values of video sources into sculptural models. These “donuts” of design and colour spun with energy and became a circular expression of each video’s creative DNA – a chaotic reinterpretation of Paul Kim’s beautiful graphical logo form.

Raoul 的团队研发了一种将音乐视觉效果旋转成混乱而美丽的 3D 结构的技术，该结构使用置换贴图将视频源的能量和像素值提炼成雕塑模型。这些设计和颜色的“甜甜圈”充满活力，成为每个视频创意 DNA 的循环表达——对 Paul Kim 美丽的图形标志形式的混乱重新诠释。

Of course, the VMAs ins pop music’s night of nights, so we still needed to make it about the nominees themselves – the stars at the heart of the show. An editorial team from RPS in Santa Monica scoured this years music videos for stunning cinematographic portraits of stars like Miley Cyrus and Jason Derulo. Elastic’s design team then painstakingly treated these with digital slow motion techniques to create intimate lyrical portraits that connected our abstract design sculptures with the people they represent.

当然，VMA 在流行音乐之夜的夜晚，所以我们仍然需要把它放在被提名者本身 - 节目核心的明星身上。来自圣莫尼卡 RPS 的一个编辑团队在今年的音乐视频中搜索了麦莉赛勒斯和杰森德鲁洛等明星的令人惊叹的电影肖像。Elastic 的设计团队随后用数字慢动作技术精心处理这些作品，创造出亲密的抒情肖像，将我们的抽象设计雕塑与其所代表的人联系起来。

The use of sound design played a dramatic role throughout the package. Can you explain the intention?

声音设计的使用在整个包装中发挥了戏剧性的作用。你能解释一下意图吗？

We wanted this years nominee montages to really capture the essence of the videos. The very talented Tyler Chase (AKA Cryptex) came on board to help find a creative way to weave each cluster of tracks together. Tyler took the music from each package and built a bespoke mix that exploited the musical relationships between each track – these awesome mixes gave each package a unique energy and really showcased the nominees in a stunning and distinctive way.

我们希望今年的提名蒙太奇能够真正捕捉视频的精髓。非常有才华的 Tyler Chase (AKA Cryptex) 加入进来，帮助找到一种创造性的方法来将每组曲目编织在一起。Tyler 从每个包中提取音乐并构建了一个定制的混音，利用每个曲目之间的音乐关系——这些令人敬畏的混音为每个包赋予了独特的能量，并以令人惊叹和独特的方式真正展示了被提名者。

For the show’s open, fellow Aussie Trumpdisco, helped to match Kanye West’s Black Skinhead with the pulsating circular motion of our black logo. Trumpdisco shaped Kanye’s track into something deep, dark, mysterious and electronic – perfect for the tone we were chasing.

在节目开幕时，澳大利亚人 Trumpdisco 帮助将 Kanye West 的 Black Skinhead 与我们黑色标志的脉动圆周运动相匹配。Trumpdisco 将 Kanye 的曲目塑造成深沉、黑暗、神秘和电子的东西——非常适合我们追求的基调。

How do the creative challenges vary between telling a cohesive story in an award-show package, versus something more linear, like a main-title sequence?

创意挑战如何在颁奖礼包中讲述一个有凝聚力的故事与更线性的故事（如主要标题序列）之间有所不同？

Visual storytelling is what we love more than anything – and we treasure the chance to work on drama Main Titles because combining visuals and storytelling is what I find compelling. Something like the VMAs is a different beast – but an equally thrilling chance to explore design and the way it can work across a whole event.

视觉叙事是我们最喜欢的东西——我们很珍惜参与戏剧主要作品的机会，因为将视觉和叙事结合起来是我觉得引人注目的地方。像 VMA 这样的东西是一种不同的野兽 - 但同样令人兴奋的机会来探索设计及其在整个活动中的工作方式。

What excites me most about this years VMAs was the chance to work on something that had a cohesive creative direction across physical objects, like sets and buildings, and also in our virtual design space.

今年 VMA 最让我兴奋的是，有机会在物理对象（如布景和建筑物）以及我们的虚拟设计空间中进行具有凝聚力的创意方向的工作。

Pop music is a great part of the culture – it’s fun, loud, sExy, provocative and shamelessly chases its audiences attention. After spending some months exploring the deep, dark depths of humanity in True Detective – or exploring the ego-shaking soul-searching of the characters from Halt and Catch Fire – it was a breath of fresh air to think about music, art, rhythms and visuals for the VMAS. The VMAs was really about pure design, and some good ole’ fashioned twerking.

流行音乐是文化的重要组成部分——它有趣、响亮、性感、挑逗并且无耻地吸引观众的注意力。在花了几个月时间探索《真探》中人性的深邃、黑暗深处——或者探索《停火》中人物的自我震撼的自我反省之后——思考音乐、艺术、节奏和VMAS 的视觉效果。VMA 真的是纯粹的设计，还有一些不错的 ole' 老式 twerking

FROM LEAD ARTIST RAOUL MARKS

The package seems to marry two aesthetics: abstracted 3-D renderings with digital aberration. What was the concept behind the direction of the package?

来自首席艺术家 RAOUL MARKS

该包装似乎结合了两种美学：抽象的 3D 渲染与数字畸变。包装方向背后的概念是什么？

Creating a cohesive design package for a long form show like the VMA’s poses a considerable challenge. Patrick shared some great reference material he had of camera tracked footage visualized in 3d space. I took this and started exploring visually ‘sampling’ the music clips. If you slow down footage extremely and then stretch out its width to something near infinity you’re left with a slowly evolving linear colour pattern that links beautifully with the source.

为像 VMA 那样的长节目创建一个有凝聚力的设计包是一项相当大的挑战。帕特里克分享了他在 3D 空间中可视化的摄像机跟踪镜头的一些很好的参考资料。我接受了这个并开始探索视觉上的“采样”音乐片段。如果您极大地减慢镜头的速度，然后将其宽度拉长到接近无穷大的程度，您就会得到一个缓慢演变的线性颜色图案，该图案与来源完美地联系在一起。

When bent around upon itself these linear patterns created disk like fingerprints of the original songs imagery. I used a similar process to create data that drove the deformations seen on the fingerprints as they were translated to 3D.

当弯曲自身时，这些线性图案创造了像原始歌曲图像指纹一样的圆盘。我使用了一个类似的过程来创建数据，当指纹被转换为 3D 时，这些数据会驱动指纹上看到的变形。

These sampled fingerprints allowed us to capture the inpidual characteristics of the clip and also to marry all the clips through one visual idea. As the night went on the fingerprints’ forms evolved organically based on the music’s imagery being fed into them. This kept the imagery fresh but still connected and conceptually unified.

这些采样指纹使我们能够捕捉剪辑的个人特征，并通过一个视觉创意将所有剪辑结合起来。随着夜幕降临，指纹的形式根据输入其中的音乐意象有机地演变。这使图像保持新鲜，但仍然相互联系并在概念上统一。

The use of sound design played a dramatic role throughout the package. Can you explain the intention?

声音设计的使用在整个包装中发挥了戏剧性的作用。你能解释一下意图吗？

We pushed for a heavily disrupted soundscape to accompany our visuals. Instead of having abrupt clearly defined cuts between tracks during our nominations packages we aimed for a single music mix of each collection of songs. We wanted people to really enjoy a brief fluid and continuous moment of music.

我们推动了一个严重破坏的音景来伴随我们的视觉效果。在我们的提名包中，我们没有在曲目之间突然明确定义的剪辑，而是针对每个歌曲集的单一音乐组合。我们希望人们真正享受短暂而流畅的音乐时刻。

How do the creative challenges vary between telling a cohesive story in an award-show package, versus something more linear, like a main-title sequence?

创意挑战如何在颁奖礼包中讲述一个有凝聚力的故事与更线性的故事（如主要标题序列）之间有所不同？

Using the sampled fingerprints allowed us to clearly represent the inpiduality of the music clip being referenced but also pull it in under one singular conceptual aesthetic. I liked to describe them as beetles in a display case – hundreds of unique, beautiful colourful imprints but all bound together by their base form.

使用采样指纹使我们能够清楚地表示所引用音乐片段的个性，同时也将其引入一种独特的概念美学之下。我喜欢将它们描述为展示柜中的甲虫——数百种独特、美丽的彩色印记，但都由它们的基本形式结合在一起。

Can you talk us through the production pipeline for the project?

你能和我们谈谈这个项目的生产管道吗？

I have to highlight a cinema 4D plugin we used in production. We used a third party unbiased render engine called Octane. Unbiased render engines are lovely to use because they don’t take shortcuts to save on render time and thus give very realistic renders without millions of settings to dial in to achieve that result. Octane renders using GPUs not the more usual CPU. This simple fact allows the renderer to render at lightning sped compared to more conventional models. Octane allowed us to render full unbiased global illumination, with blurry reflections, depth of field and very dense polygon counts all at super fast speeds. The render is also progressive, meaning that it very quickly appears as a noisy image and the longer you leave it the more it resolves to a clean noiseless image. This meant from a designers perspective its very quick to get feedback on what the frame will look when rendered. Its usually possible to move the camera around in real time seeing an, albeit noisy, accurate depiction of the finished shot.

我必须强调我们在制作中使用的电影 4D 插件。我们使用了名为 Octane 的第三方无偏渲染引擎。无偏渲染引擎非常好用，因为它们不会走捷径来节省渲染时间，因此无需进行数百万个设置即可获得非常逼真的渲染效果。Octane 使用 GPU 而非更常见的 CPU 进行渲染。与更传统的模型相比，这个简单的事实允许渲染器以闪电般的速度进行渲染。Octane 使我们能够以超快的速度渲染完全无偏的全局照明，具有模糊反射、景深和非常密集的多边形计数。渲染也是渐进式的，这意味着它很快就会显示为一个嘈杂的图像，你离开它的时间越长，它就越能解析为一个干净的无噪声图像。这意味着从设计师的角度来看，它可以非常快速地获得渲染时帧外观的反馈。通常可以实时移动相机来查看已完成镜头的准确描绘，尽管有些嘈杂。

Being able to see in realtime how our objects were twisting and distorting was invaluable to the process. This approach of rendering on the gpu has revolutionized the way i will approach 3d design production. I don’t have to worry anymore about the endless settings. I can focus purely on design and the image.

能够实时看到我们的物体如何扭曲和扭曲对这个过程来说是非常宝贵的。这种在 GPU 上进行渲染的方法彻底改变了我将进行 3d 设计制作的方式。我不必再担心无休止的设置。我可以完全专注于设计和图像。