Titmouse's Jeremy Polgar on storyboarding AREA21's Greatest Hits Vol 1.

The animated music video for AREA21’s track Pogo features a desert car chase, hundreds of hopping bunnies, scenes of Las Vegas, and of course, two guys bouncing around on pogo sticks! 

AREA21 is a Dutch-American electronic dance music duo: Martin Garrix, a well-known DJ/producer, and Maejor, a rapper, singer, songwriter and music producer. The pair teamed up with the award-winning animation production company Titmouse and director Jeremy Polgar to create a series of seven music videos for their album, Greatest Hits Vol 1. 

Created over the course of several months, the videos follow the exciting adventures of two interstellar characters. Since the release of the videos, Titmouse has shared storyboards from several of the videos. These storyboard comparisons reveal some of the creative process behind the music videos. 

We caught up with some of the artists behind the project. Director Jeremy Polgar, storyboard artist, Jamie Vickers, and revisionist/board artist, Stephanie Ressler (Stevie), shared with us the process and experience that went into creating Pogo. 

How did your team end up working on the Pogo music video?

Jeremy: In 2019, AREA21 started discussing the music videos with Titmouse. The talks started with visualizations and style exploration. Once the studio won the bid for the project, they had to find a director for it. And that’s when Antonio Canobbio, Chief Creative Officer at Titmouse, reached out to me. I sent Titmouse my demo reel and an independent proof of concept for AREA21 for consideration. Thankfully they liked what they saw, and I officially got the job. Once I was on board, it was decided that we would work on (what started as) a six-video slate. The first video we made was La La La followed by Pogo. 

Can you tell me about your process behind storyboarding animated music videos?

Jeremy: I typically follow a similar process for animating music videos as I would with any animation production. I start with a script or outline, storyboards, designs, animation, compositing to final, etcetera. But with this project, AREA21 provided us with some initial ideas. So I had a loose script outline to work from when I got started on Pogo. 

I began by listening to the track over and over. It was really important to listen to it multiple times just to meditate on it and give it some deep thought. Once I felt settled into the track, I did a style image to help create a visual tone that would carry throughout the rest of the video. Once the style images were approved by AREA21, I started on rough thumbnail sketches, which I quickly drew on paper. Then later, I scanned the pages into Storyboard Pro.

What’s very effective about working like this is that once the thumbnails are in Storyboard Pro, I can time the frames with the music; so everything is blocked in and I have a broad view of the entire video before getting too lost in the details. From there, it’s easy to start the actual storyboard process, detailing ideas, locking in poses, and staging. After that, the rest of the production moves along in a natural way. 

Jamie: The process of working on a music video is driven by the soundtrack, which creates the framework for the entire piece. It's always nice to start with the sound. While listening to the track, you find the right timing while adding markers and creating a visual framework in the timeline. From there, you can drop in some images. What differentiates storyboarding for music videos from other animation formats is that you need to consider the flow, rhythm and cadence of the track and then interpret the music into a visual representation that fits the tone. It's really fun. Like painting what we hear. Listening to the track over and over is super important. 

A track like Pogo is a bit of a challenge because it’s so fast paced; there are only brief sections or any variations in the beat. We had to find the moments that you can use to push the story along; when there’s a change in the cadence or rhythm of the track. For example: At 01:20 the beat drops out, and this felt like the perfect point for a visual emotional shift, as the car crash plays out in slow-motion. It felt like this is what the song was asking for. 

Can you share a bit about what inspired Pogo's narrative, design and visual storytelling?

Jeremy: We knew the video was going to take place in the Nevada desert. That gave us a great starting point for thinking about the design and visual storytelling. I have to give a shout out Titmouse Creative Director, Mark Brooks, who used to visit Vegas a lot and now lives there. In one of our Monday morning meetings, Mark shared with us how he would see tons of desert cottontail bunnies all over the road when driving from Arizona to Nevada.

He included this in the original outline which inspired us to push that idea as hard as we could. We knew it would be a nightmare for whomever had to animate all those bunnies, but that it would look so cool we just had to bite the bullet. (Big thank you to those animators!) Then Jamie came up with the idea for making one lead protagonist bunny. This wasn’t in the script, but it turned out to be such a fun and smart storytelling device. I love when board artists come up with on-the-spot ideas like that!

Jamie: I had been struggling a bit to find a way to assemble the narrative pieces for the video. It occurred to me that there should just be one bunny that falls in love with the AREA21 characters. From there, the idea evolved into more bunnies bouncing around; until they clump together in that huge mass that takes over the car. The clump of bunnies ended up being a solution for having to draw hundreds of little bunnies. Jeremy suggested drawing the overall form of all these rabbits clumping together, and not worrying about each individual form jumping around. It worked!

Jamie, can you tell us more about your experience storyboarding Pogo? 

Jamie: In my first meeting with Jeremy, he showed me a splash image that was just pure insanity. Bunnies hopping around, a car chase, and more. The primary direction was that the characters would eventually need to make it to a party in a Las Vegas club. As a team, we had to figure out how we would make all these elements work. We discussed it over Zoom meetings. I would then go work independently. Periodically I’d check in with Jeremy and the team, and eventually it got done.

There was also crossover into the animation side as well. By default storyboard artists often play a hybrid role of storyboard artist and animator. This is driven by the ability to nuance the timing in SBP on the timeline. Shorter, artistic projects like this I find incredibly fun and interesting. As a story artist, there’s an opportunity to dip into more aspects of the production than when working on bigger productions. 

I know this isn’t most artist’s preference, but I really like working on my Microsoft Surface Go. When I go into the studio, I have access to high powered computers, but I still end up sitting there with my little Surface Go — it’s pretty hysterical. I have worked on full feature films using Storyboard Pro on my Surface Go! I like working this way because it gives me flexibility. I’m able to work from basically anywhere. I think the fact that Storyboard Pro works on low-powered machines is important for accessibility, too. Artists don’t have to invest in expensive computers to use the program. 

[Curious if Storyboard Pro will run on your device? Artists can try Storyboard Pro, free for 21 days.]

Do you have tips for artists who are starting to use Storyboard Pro for the first time?

Stevie: Everytime I run into a problem and find myself sitting there thinking, “there’s got to be a better way to do this,” there is! I’m constantly finding more efficient ways to work because of the tools available in the program.

When I first started out boarding, I drew everything on paper, scanned that paper into the computer, cleaned things up in Photoshop, and then assembled it all in Flash. It was a whole, terrible process. I love Storyboard Pro because you can do everything from start to finish within the software. It also streamlines logistical steps, such as automatically notating scene and panel numbers. That’s one less thing that you need to think about as an artist.

The Storyboard Pro interface is different from most animation software, so there can be a bit of a learning curve. But once it clicks, Storyboard Pro is so much fun to use. I think for people who are just starting out using the program, the key is to set up layers smartly. Storyboard Pro keeps track of things based on layer names. Keeping your layer names consistent helps make revisions a lot easier, because you can then edit drawings across multiple panels all at once, instead of doing it one by one. Consistent naming is also necessary for tools such as spread layer motion.   

Jamie: I worked as an animator and board artist in Japan for a decade, where storyboarding is still done entirely on paper. When I came back to the US in 2010, I had to learn how to draw on the Cintiq, which didn’t come naturally for me.  

My advice for anyone picking up Storyboard Pro is to keep it simple. It’s very easy to get into Storyboard Pro’s more complex tools and features because the program is so advanced. I know people who even animate in Storyboard Pro! But if you’re starting out with it, try to get comfortable with the program’s basics before delving into the complex stuff. 

It's easy to quickly put on the animator's hat while working in Storyboard Pro. Frames are free! The program has a lot of tools and capabilities allowing us to edit together a full animatic; even create a fully animated piece. Have fun, dive in — it's an incredibly intuitive software to use with a very short learning curve. If in doubt, go back to paper. Sometimes we need technology to get out of the way before we can move forward.

What scenes in Pogo were the most artistically or technically challenging for your team?

Jeremy: It’s honestly hard to narrow down one particular scene because let’s be honest, the whole video is total chaos! I think the first challenge was probably that the storyboard revisionists had to refine a lot of my initial chicken scratch panels — although it was well-done chicken scratch. I have to give myself some credit! 

One challenging scene was drawing the crowds at the end of the video in Las Vegas.

Stevie: Yeah, it was really important to approach the scene in an organized manner. I had to arrange the foreground, midground and background crowds on separate layers so they could bounce separately. There was one particularly complicated shot where we started out with a couple people dancing, and then whip panned to a down shot of a huge crowd as Maejor is flying over it on his hover orb. While he’s flying over it, he high fives one of the people in the crowd and then the camera zips down to the floor to see the bunnies gathered at the crowd’s feet. 

The transition between the people dancing and the main crowd was simple enough, it was just a whip pan. But the transition from looking above the crowd to down below required some creative thinking. The perspective of the down shot and the perspective of the floor are different. While a perspective shift like that is simple enough to do in 3D animation, it is very difficult and time-consuming to do in 2D. I had to use layer motions and move the camera quickly to hide that shifting perspective.  

What has the reception to Pogo been like?

Jeremy: I’m so grateful to say that it's been very well received. Fans of AREA21 as well as our art peers have been so supportive. And I should note that the video did pretty darn good for something that was brand new! Overall, this project has been a beautiful marriage of collaboration between the music, musicians, studio, and animation artists. 

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