Close Your Eyes - Music Video

I wrote a poem and worked with a music producer, Jaime Aldous, to turn it into a music piece with a lo-fi beat. Once we had completed the song I had the idea of creating a relatively simple music video idea using a looping animation in Unreal Engine. The setting would be of a seaside town and the visuals would represent a windmill pinwheel, animating around and around in a loop. I worked with Braden May to create the 2D illustrations which I would then layer on top of one another and move in a circle either left or right, keeping parallax in mind. I also added a day / night cycle which introduced new animations (e.g. the lighthouse emitting a beam of light) to make the music video less repetitive. Lyrics / Poem: Be brave and close your eyes. Distract yourself from the world around you that will still remain unchanged when you have the strength to open them again. Be brave and close your eyes. Give in to the silence that remains, broken only by your breath that quickens as the beat of your heart rises. Be brave and close your eyes. Marvel as your thoughts collide within you as you race to catch up to something out of your control. Be brave and close your eyes. Let your body lay still while you feel yourself spiral down a rabbit hole where you've been so many times before. Be brave and close your eyes. Feel the adrenaline flow through your aching limbs as you allow yourself to descend into a reality that is yours and yours alone. Be brave and close your eyes. Let yourself be transported to where your mind needs to be. Revel within what the darkness allows you to see. There's so much that we've yet to understand and even though it feels like madness this just may be the closest thing to an alternate reality. As a child I used to believe it so. Be brave and close your eyes. Where will you go?