Metalcore foursome Reformist came to me to create a music video for their heaviest and longest single from their debut album Voyages.
The lyrics are a story about the mind bending effects of addiction. They had one request: Could we make this mainly about game addiction. With a local arcade and a great concept which would combine retro animation with heavy and light inducing visuals, the music video was created.
Director: Ruben Swart
Producer: Mark van Gils
Art direction: Ruben Swart
Assistant director: Luna Bagchus
Producer: Mark van Gils
Art direction: Ruben Swart
Assistant director: Luna Bagchus
Shot on location and in front of a greenscreen, the music video is a combination of animation and live action footage to recreate the struggle with addiction, shown by retro video game graphics.
Through VFX using After Effects, one of the arcade games was transformed to Reformist the Game, both a meta-joke and parallel for the story of the vocalist being addicted to screaming and singing this song.
Using Photoshop, After Effects and Blender I created a 90's game world, inspired by games like Mortal Kombat 2, Doom and old Playstation games from the early 90's.
All the bandmembers are in the game, both as playing extra's in the game world and to reflect the relationship between the vocalist and the bandmembers that will decline as he starts to get addicted to the game.
