Following their nationwide Efferusphere tour, Big Wild hit the road in the summer of 2023 for festival stops at Coachella, Bonnaroo, Red Rocks, Lollapalooza, and more. Fresh off of production of the band's "OMGarden" music video, the Deep Sky team created a series of colorful, transcendent motion graphics to play on-stage during the show.
The animated concert graphics were the backdrop to some of the band's biggest hits like "Awaken", "Purple Sand", "Curious", "When I Get There", and "Blue".
All concert photos credited to Amanda (IG: @ajpgphoto).
Our team has been a big fan of Big Wild for a while. We've definitely jammed out to "6's to 9's", "When I Get There", and more. We also love supporting any Portland-based music artists.
We worked with Big Wild and their team to create the animated music video for "OMGarden" in the summer of 2022. For that video, we developed an immersive and magical world for Jackson's real-life rabbit Mopsy to explore. The video blended 2D characters with a rich 3D environment and VFX. If you're interested in seeing more about how that video was made, check out our production breakdown at AEPDX's Animated Music Video Production event.
In 2023, Big Wild had been on their Efferusphere Tour visiting cities across the US. When they booked shows at some of the biggest American music festivals like Coachella, Hangout, Bonnarroo, Red Rocks, Lollapalooza, Cascade Equinox, and Suwanee Hulaween, they wanted on-stage graphics that matched the scale of those shows.
They brought a list of songs that they wanted some new animated motion graphics created, and we began working with them on finding some visual inspiration. We focused on abstract shapes, bright colors, and continuous loops. We stayed away from anything narrative or too distracting, as we wanted the focus to remain primarily on the band's performance.
After nailing down the concepts, our production team began on creating storyboards. Since the animations are timed to hit certain cues in the songs, we paired the timing of the boards to the exact tracks the band plays live. Concurrently, our illustrators created the final artwork and assets to be used for animation. They handed those off to our animation team, who brought it all to life.
We worked directly with the band to address any notes and make sure we captured the essence of every song. You can see the animations as the backdrop to songs such as "Awaken", "Purple Sand", "Curious", "When I Get There", and "Blue.
As much as we love working on fun projects, the partner we do it with is even more important. In addition to being actual fans, we've loved being creative collaborators with the band as well. Seeing the music video for "OMGarden" and these most recent motion graphics animations play during live shows in front of fans just as passionate about the band as us is what makes it all worth it.
