Universal Production Music
Animation Branding Challenge
CHALLENGE
Create an enthralling animation that visually interprets the music while introducing the name of the new musical release from Universal Production Music.
AUDIENCE
Their current audience has been 40-50 years old males who are producers, editors, or art directors. Universal is looking to expand into a younger, more gender-balanced demographic, 25-year-olds. To think of Universal for their music licensing.
Client
Universal Production Music
Home to the most innovative composers, songwriters and producers, they deliver music that captures passionate audiences the world over.
Universal offers over 2,700 digital albums from more than 37 global libraries. The catalog is continuously evolving with over 100 new albums produced each year.
MUSIC
“Metronomic” by Nova Productions Music.
One of the main key basics of this project is music, as it’s part of the clients' business. This album combines the general underscores of suspense & tension, with technological and mechanical sound effects. I chose this album because I found the album’s music tracks to be visually interesting and unique, and would grab the targeted audience's attention by showing cool visuals.
Working with audio designer, Kelly Warner, the music track was cut down to the appropriate length for the animation.
“Metronomic” the album’s original art cover
IDEALIZATION
After listening to the album and one of the tracks, I began brainstorming some ideas for cool visual imagery to the music. I came up with these 3 directional concepts below. It was inspired by the album’s theme of tech and time.
Proposed Directions
CONCEPT 1: INNER WORKINGS
Showcasing the journey inside and out of the working functions of a cuckoo clock, with moving parts syncing to the track’s beats and sound effects. Ending with the Universal Production Music logo popping out of the door.
CONCEPT 2: ASTRONOMICAL FUTURE
Hologram projection shows sparkles forming into the earth, and rings extract out forming the armillary sphere. Doing calculations of time. The armillary sphere hologram transforms itself into the logo with the earth remaining.
CONCEPT 3: DISCOVERING GEODES
Starting with a Geodes rock being hit a couple of times by a mallet to crack it open revealing the crystals inside the rock and the logo.
-
![]()
Concept 1 storyboard
-
![]()
Concept 2 Storyboard
-
![]()
Concept 3 Storyboard
RESEARCH & References
With the first concept chosen, I began doing a lot of research and image references of cuckoo clocks and their mechanisms. Studying the functions, and how it works (mostly the Regula 34 cuckoo clock), helps me understand and reference it while modeling separate parts in Cinema 4D and gaining knowledge while animating it, capturing the essence of time within the music.
CUCKOO CLOCK
INSIDE MECHANISM
MECHANISM MOVEMENT DIAGRAM
Design Elements
TEXTURES
I used many materials to make the models look realistically accurate, using different old wood textures to capture the realistic man-made exterior look of the cuckoo clock. For the interior mechanisms, I used a difference of gold and little silver materials adding micro scratches and little rust curvature on some of it showing the age of the mechanics and gears.
TYPOGRAPHY
I chose the Montserrat font regular and extra bold for its modern design of the clock and to try and match similarly to the Universal logo. To make the tagline stand out, I increased the weight of ‘Universal’ over ‘Music is’
LIGHTING
Capturing the tone of the musical track, I chose to make the lighting start dark inside with little light and later brighter adding a sense of mystery hiding parts until the end. The warmer temperature illumination matches the rich colors of the cuckoo clock and the mechanisms like a home environment. I have added Gobo lighting to make the scenes realistic and to show parts of the mechanisms inside the clock.
Modeling in Cinema 4D
The cuckoo and its mechanisms were all modeled and animated in Cinema 4D, then textured & rendered in Redshift.
After researching, I began modeling the outside of the cuckoo clock and the inside of all the parts of the mechanisms- gears, cogs, wheels, pendulum, chains, and a music box by referencing the images I had gathered while modeling in Cinema 4D.
I wanted to maintain the realistic look and the integrity of the clock while keeping it simple like the exterior of the clock. This was quite a long and heavily driven process, to get every single part and the whole just right and try to leave out some pieces that we may not see.
Universal Production Music logo is used as the alarm for the cuckoo clock. Thought it would be a fun way to reveal or show the logo in some form.
Animation Process
Once the model was finished, it was time to animate it. Mainly the animation had to visually interpret/sync to the music, and capture the ratchet-ticking movements of the clock. Since the music track has some sounds incorporated into it, I had a general idea of how I wanted the parts to move representing the mechanical sounds and quirky and syncopated rhythms of the music. Each part of the cuckoo clock's mechanism was animated altogether to get all the functions to work correctly.
After the animation was finished, all 11 total shots were rendered in Redshift as either OpenEXR or MP4 files. The ones saved as OpenEXR files were taken into Nuke adding depth of field, messing with Bokeh. To give certain objects in the shots better focus and film it realistic. Some shots were already rendered with the depth of field in Cinema 4D as a movie file.
Animation Passes
FIRST PASS:
While most of this pass was filled with animatics, storyboards and 3D animations of the beginning and the end, the timing and cutting between shots syncing to the musical track was well-paced. The first and last shots still need more work. The ‘UNIVERSAL’ logo should be connected to the globe to make it man-made and mechanical. More work on the logo with color. Should have dynamic lighting and displacement materials throughout.
SECOND PASS:
Everything is almost coming together, feedback was set up as a rule for the animations to have the gears ratchet ticking. The Universal should rotate with jittery ticking. In shot 7, the weights move down together and add the opposite side. Incorporate micro scratches on the materials. Overall, I needed more animations and finished modeling. For lighting references images of the inside of the cuckoo clock, start dramatic and later lighter.
THIRD PASS:
Animation is coming together and needs final renders for all shots. Client feedback, for shots 2 and 8, the shear bending of comb tips needs to be shortened. The first shot’s camera move needs to move linearly. Add interesting lighting like god rays inside and gobo lighting for the inside and outside of the environment. Add depth of field throughout to make the shots interesting. Add more detail on the gold and silver materials.
