A DAY TO REMEMBER:
MINDREADER
Awesome INC. reached out to me to work with them on a music video for A Day to Remember’s new song, Mindreader. I came on as the creative director for the project, developed the concept and look of the video, and led the storyboarding, illustration, and animation for the piece - all with support from the animation team at Awesome.
THE SONG/THE BAND:
A Day to Remember are an extremely popular band, with musical roots in metalcore and pop-punk. Their new song told the story of a couple struggling to understand each other, through a horror/fantasy lens of mystics and the occult.
I pitched the story of a broken down motorist wandering into a tarot reader’s shop, and getting caught up in a game of love and psychic energy that sends him to the far corners of the world.
Once the concept was signed off on, we moved into character design. It was important to nail down our to main characters, as well as the look of the band members.
CHARACTER DESIGN:






THE MAGIC OF CEL:
While the characters and backgrounds were vector based, drawn in Adobe Illustrator, I wanted to breathe a little hand-drawn life into the magical powers of our mind-reading antagonist.
To achieve this, I animated over 30 custom cel effects in Photoshop and Rough Animator.
ILLUSTRATIONS
Here is the full set of illustrations for the video, roughly 50 scenes.



















































THE RESULTS:
THE BAND LOVED THE VIDEO AND DEBUTED THE SONG ON YOUTUBE
OVER 3 MILLION VIEWS
THE VIDEO HAS OVER 2,500 COMMENTS, MANY SPECIFICALLY LOVING ON THE ANIMATION
CREDITS:
Executive Producer: Ashley Kohler
Senior Producer: Liz Macke
Creative Direction, Design, Story: Jeff Gess
Design Director: Craig Sheldon
Animation: Jeff Gess, Pablo Lozano, Mark McDonald, Aaron M. Miller, Jahmad Rollins, Belen Saenz de Viteri, Melissa Wolfert
Character Consultant: Claire Almon
Composite: Sam Bass, Jamie Galatas, Jeff Gess, Craig Sheldon
Editor: Thomas Fine