Euan McGrath's fully animated video for British alt-rock outfit Losers explores the increasingly psychedelic and stylised journey of a butterfly from cold darkness to a world of light and colour.

Created using a combination of Cinema 4D and After Effects, McGrath echoes the tone and message of the song Wake Up in the butterfly's valiant struggle to find the path to the light.

McGrath essentially taught himself about 3D animation during the course of the video too - as he explains below. It was a steep learning curve - with major setbacks on the way - but the results are impressive.

EUAN MCGRATH:

I essentially ended up having to build the video twice...

"Losers got in touch with me to come on board as their visual director last autumn. At that time Wake Up was going to be the first release of an ongoing series of new singles from the band in 2021.

"The initial pitch I got from the band was that they really wanted the video to feature butterflies. I listened to the song and immediately had this vision of lone butterfly coming to life in the darkness, then venturing forth on a journey that becomes more full of colour and psychedelic imagery as he progresses. I really wanted to do something I hadn’t done before with this video, so embarked on trying to create this vision using 3D animation. A BIG learning curve was to follow.

"I won't bore you with all the gory details… but I essentially ended up having to build the video twice, once using one programme, then again from scratch in a different one. Basically although the first software was chosen for ease of use, it actually proved impossible to use for our needs, due to the highly detailed nature of the 3D butterfly.

"So we ended up halfway through production having to change over to the other software and start building all the shots again from scratch. It was a nightmare - and this was all going on, the band ended up swapping their release schedule around. It meant I had more time to work on Wake Up, but also meant I had another video to create first (for Lost In Translation), as well as creating all the covers and social media assets for all the new songs.

"It was a big crush towards the end of the project to get the video finished in time - we even had to push the release back a few weeks. The final stages of rendering and adding all the lighting effects, etc, in After Effects really pushed my machine’s processing power - as well as my sanity!

"I’m proud of how the video looks, and that I pushed myself to do something different… And I’ve learned a lot about everything from the process!"