videoColdplay 'feelslikeimfallinginlove' by Raman DjafariBlinkink director Raman Djafari has curated an international team of 15 guest animators to craft a visually stunning animated journey for the opening single from Coldplay's new album.The video for feelslikeimfallinginlove - where two souls that continually find each other in various forms - is composed of the work of animators working in a variety of disciplines, including stop motion, 2D, 3D & digital painting, oil pastels on paper, watercolour, and laser cut felt.It was also a true global effort, involving a diverse team from Switzerland, the United States, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Sweden, the Netherlands, and South Korea.The project aimed to create a coherent framework allowing individual animators to express their unique styles while maintaining a consistent narrative. The transitions between these segments required meticulous planning, and each animator initially created the start and end of their scenes, enabling the creation of 16 bespoke transitions.The result is akin to a visual form of the parlour game Consequences - and a dreamlike experience. Seamless transitions that transport viewers to newly constructed worlds, preserving the emotional continuity from one section to the next.Each animator is distinct in their visual language but unified in their ability to capture genuine emotion..."In every music video that I have directed, there is always one idea or image that appears early in the process and guides the project until the very end. In this case it was the image of a pair of two. Friends, lovers, soulmates."The concept of this video centers around the motif of a couple, a pair of two, searching and ultimately finding each other. How they are represented changes throughout the video. The journey depicts this pair traveling between worlds and changing form, expressed through 15 styles of animation, by 15 animators from across the world, told in 3 chapters: 1. longing 2. searching 3. finding."What I love about the medium of animation is that it’s so capable of speaking in the language of our thoughts and emotions. That is, fluently transcending between feelings, changing perspectives, reflecting the way we as people experience the world or even our dreams. I wanted to make a video that expresses this through the many forms animation can take."For the past couple of years, I’ve travelled to animation festivals across the globe and met so many talented animators, many of which became friends. I wanted to bring some of these people to this project, artists I have seen grow and develop their own unique approaches and refine them over the years as well as animators who I have always looked up to and now can call peers and friends."This community is so rich in talent and keeps growing even larger beyond festivals over the internet. In many ways this video is about highlighting 14 of these incredible animators."At the very beginning, when storyboarding the video I tried to come up with scenes that manage to hold both the fragility and overwhelming euphoria of falling in love at the same time. I wanted this journey to feel like a dream, moving through varying styles of animation, each scene connected through an intricately animated transition.Every transition was to bring us to a new world, but would carry on the emotion of the previous sequence. The world I wanted to create was a surreal one, but the feelings which are expressed would be familiar and resonant.I hope this video will spark a sense of wonder and fascination for the medium of animation."I wanted to create a framework for all the animators that would allow them to express themselves with their individual style while keeping the narrative and direction coherent. I curated a list of animators, each of them distinct in their visual language but unified in their ability to capture genuine emotion and a sense of warmth and honesty."For each one of them, I came up with a scene and a pair of characters and then developed their scene idea further together with them. In some cases, I provided sketches and designs for characters and props, for others I shared references and then again for some the scene changed quite a bit from my original storyboards. The collaboration with each animator was different and I am so thankful for every single one of their contributions. It was a lot of fun to see each scene developing parallel to each other and trying to direct everyone towards the vision of the video without stifling everyone's individual approach and creativity."Because each animator required different kinds of feedback and because many of them are scattered throughout the globe, coordinating and bringing them together was challenging but a lot of fun. From the very beginning I tailored every scene toward the particular style and approach of each animator. I enjoyed trying to see this video through the lens of their craft and presenting them with the scene I came up with for them."The transitions were another fun challenge that stemmed from the need to blend all these styles seamlessly. I tried to find surprising changes in animation style and bring them together through a transition that was specific to each scene idea and technique."I really hope this video will spark a sense of wonder and fascination for the medium of animation in the audience so that they check out everyone involved in this project and start following their work and hopefully discover even more animation beyond that."
