Role: Design & Animation
Client: Lil Yachty + HumanPerson Studio
Created: 2023

The team at HumanPerson Studio reached out to me in 2023 to try out some new techniques for Lil Yachty’s Field Trip Tour. The brief was to create some classic effects from psychedelic 60’s light shows and present them on an incredibly wide format screen. I was tasked with creating content for ‘The Ride’ and ‘Pretty,’ which involved a combination of analog and digital effects captured in-camera. Special thanks to Aron Johnson and the HumanPerson team for once again trusting me to get weird and experiment.
 

THE RIDE

Content was created for ‘The Ride’ using a combination of liquid light show techniques and analog glitch on a CRT television. The visuals were filmed with a black magic 6K camera and a Laowa Nanomorph 35mm lens. More details below on how the specific look was achieved.

PRETTY

Content created for the song ‘Pretty’ using crosspolarized lights and camera filters to film various types of rotating plastics. All content filmed with a black magic 6K camera and a Laowa Nanomorph 35mm lens. More details below on how the specific look was achieved.

THE CONCERT

I was able to photograph Lil Yachty’s tour as it passed through Portland, Oregon. Unfortunately only a small portion of the LED screen was able to fit onto the stage, so I also created a virtual concert scene in UnrealEngine to show the tour visuals in their widescreen format. The full screen content was output at 5220 × 1080 pixels to create a serious cinematic experience for the fans.

PROCESS

Content for ‘The Ride’ was filmed using a liquid light show technique that I learned online thanks to Steve Pavlovsky AKA Liquid Light Lab. The process began by filming watercolor, candle dyes, and alcohol as they were squished between two convex glass plates. The footage was then processed through the Tachyons+ Dreamweapon module and output on a CRT television monitor. Another round of liquid effects were filmed on top of the monitor, allowing the low-fi glitch to become a backdrop to the physical liquid interactions.

The visuals for ‘Pretty’ involved a lighting trick shown to me by the legendary DP Joe Picard. The setup uses cross-polarized filters on the camera lens and then various still-lives of plastic in front of a TV monitor. Since the monitor is already polarized, the screen becomes invisible while the reflections on the tape become a holographic spazz of light and color.

LIQUID LIGHT SHOW TESTS

As a proof-of-concept, I filmed a wide variety of liquid light show effects. Many did not make it into the final show, but I still think there’s some beauty in them. A big thanks to Steve Pavlovsky AKA Liquid Light Lab for sharing so much of his process online, I couldn’t have done it without his amazing tutorials and product links.

CREDITS

Client: Lil Yachty
Production Design: Human Person / Ben Dalgleish
Lighting Designer: Kasper Iseger
Technical Director: Steve Hedges
Show Director: Ian Valentine
Content Director: Aron Johnson
Animators: Peter Clark, Ash Smith, Miron Malejki, Frank Xavier, Tom Cohen, Cameron Veitch, Javad Sadeqi, Elliot Sellars, Tim Marriott
Editors: Matt Cummer
Intro Score: Jake Nadrich