The Chemical Brothers 'Live Again' Music Video

‘Live Again’ is a perfect Chemical Brothers track – unstoppable, resolutely hopeful and, once heard, utterly unshakable – it needed a suitably compelling video. So Tom & Ed turned once again  to directors DOM&NIC, the creative duo who have worked with the band over a period of twenty five years on videos including ‘Hey Boy Hey Girl’, ‘Block Rockin’ Beats’, ‘Setting Sun’,  the multi-award winning video ‘Wide Open’ and most recently ‘Free Yourself’.

This time DOM&NIC entered the technological filmmaking frontier of Virtual Production and Real-Time VFX to create a trippy ‘Groundhog-Day-esque’ adventure story through multiple environments in a continuous dance performance by the captivating and seemingly elastic human, Josipa Kukor. 

To achieve their vision DOM&NIC and production company, Outsider brought together not only a world class crew, most of whom had never shot on a virtual stage before including cinematographer Stephen Keith-Roach and production designer Chris Oddy, but also the creative and technical expertise of Untold Studios, together with virtual production specialists from ARRI Solutions, Creative Technology and Lux Machina, all hosted on and powered by ARRI Stage London, the state of the art virtual production studio in West London.

The journey of making it pushed the technology beyond its known limits, breaking new ground, and adding weight to the proposition of embracing virtual production as a creative choice first and foremost, rather than as predominantly a time, money or travel saving method of filmmaking.

On making ‘Live Again’ DOM&NIC said, “Working with the Chemical Brothers is always a dream for us. To have such a strong and inspiring piece of music and blank page to create a visual companion to it is as close to blissful creative freedom as it gets for directors. This was our tenth collaboration with the Chems and we knew time would be tight on the back end of the project. The combination of this and the track’s title inspired the idea of a dance piece with a character caught in a continual loop of death and rebirth. The idea that we could do this in long unbroken shots inspired us to use ARRI Stage London in a way that had never previously been done. We wanted to create real-time rendered environments that could change without cutting the camera. Much of the hard VFX work would take place prior to the shoot, running concurrently with the rest of pre production and ultimately save time in post. But on top of this it inspired an idea that could not really have been achieved in any other way irrespective of time and that was exciting for everyone.  We were showered with the generosity of such a strong and huge team of immensely talented companies and individuals that helped us to make this film happen. Many of whom we work with regularly on commercials and a number who have also worked with us on past Chemical Brother’s videos. Without their time, talents and generosity a film like this could never make it out of heads and onto a screen.“

Untold Studios Real-time Supervisor Simon Legrand added  “This project was a perfect storm, with our team at Untold working with Outsider and the ARRI Stage London team to pull out all of the stops to bring DOM&NIC’s bold and innovative concept to life. We pushed the boundaries of what’s possible in Virtual Production, breaking ground as we went. After designing seven bespoke virtual worlds in pre-production, we were then able to tweak elements on set, on the fly, giving the directors the freedom to play and experiment.  This is the first time that virtual environments have been switched live on set in this way and we’re really proud to have been trusted to help make it a reality.”

“Working with the production on this project represented many creative and technical challenges. It was a unique opportunity for all of us involved to really see how hard we could push the boundaries. Technically, this required a huge collaborative effort between camera, lighting, VFX and virtual production supervision to ensure seamless integration. This promo brought the best of the best together across all these disciplines to bring the creative team’s vision to life and deliver an incredibly special end result.” said David Levy, Business Development Director, ARRI Solutions.

Supporting this, Will Case, Director of Innovation, Creative Technology Ltd. said “It was incredibly exciting to have such an innovative and technically challenging project come into the stage. It really pushed the boundaries of working in real-time workflows and technologies to bring to life DOM&NIC’s visually stunning promo. It required everyone involved to work collaboratively to achieve this very challenging but hugely rewarding project together.” 

‘Live Again’ features vocals from Halo Maud (Heavenly Recordings) and follows on the heels of the recently released single No Reason and is taken from the tenth Chemical Brothers album that’s due later this year. 

The Chemical Brothers play a series of previously announced European/UK live dates across the summer and into the autumn.

CREDITS

Artist: The Chemical Brothers

Title: Live Again

Label: EMI Records / Universal Music

Marketing Executive: Alex Henderson

Video Commissioner: Ailsa Robertson

Directors’s Representation (Music Video): OB Management

OUTSIDER:

Production Company: Outsider

Directors: DOM&NIC 

Producer: John Madsen

Executive Producer: Simon Elborne

Production Manager: Tom Benkins

DOP: Stephen Keith-Roach

Steadicam Operator: Rick Woollard

Choreographer: Supple Nam

1st AD: James Sharpe

Production Designer: Chris Oddy

Stylist: Tara Stift

Dancer: Josipa Kukor

Editor: Ed Cheeseman @ Final Cut

Sound Mix and SFX: Adam Smyth @ String and Tins

Colour grade: Jean-Clément Soret @ Company3

UNTOLD STUDIOS:

VFX & Real Time Production: Untold Studios

Chief Creative Officer: Neil Davies

Executive Producer: Ian Berry

Producer: George Reid, Simon Downie

Production Assistant: Helena Almeida

Virtual Production & Real-time Supervisor: Simon Legrand

VFX Supervisor: Matt Kavanagh

Technical Artist: Heyden Adams

Artists: Vlad Pascanu, George Rockliffe, Emma Lepuil, Tom Moreland, Carlo Carfor, Ankur Arora, Emien Arkin, Emre Samioglu, Garry Driver, Lucas Girault, Murali Krishna Reddy, Richard Harris, Pillippe Moine, Shariq Altaf

ARRI:

Virtual Production Studio: ARRI Stage London

Virtual Production Supervisor: David Levy

Production Consultant: Rob Payton

Stage Manager: Sean Ryan

Board Operation: Shane Greenway

Rigging Operation: Michael Apostolou

CREATIVE TECHNOLOGY:

Project Manager: Connie Glover

Project Coordinator: Anette Moreno

Engine Operator: Joseph Loe

Systems Engineer: Callum Smith-Halvorsen

Systems Engineer: Raoul Mohamdee

Creative Consultant: Will Case

LUX:

Virtual Production Supervisor: Jack Dartford 

Engine Operator: Simon Mullot 

Camera Tracking Lead: Daniela Espada 

Camera Tracking Tech: Kieran Wilkinson 

ABOUT ARRI STAGE LONDON:

ARRI Stage London is an advanced virtual production studio that presents fresh potential for projects that push creative boundaries. 

Designed by ARRI Solutions and delivered as a collaboration between ARRI, ARRI Rental and Creative Technology, the 708 m² stage showcases the latest ICVFX technologies that ARRI and its partners have to offer.  

As one of Europe’s largest fixed virtual production facilities, ARRI Stage London provides a premium choice for high-quality feature, episodic television, and commercial projects.

The LED volume at ARRI Stage London consists of a main, ‘in-vision’ curved, a back wall, two mobile side walls and a dynamic, height-adjustable LED ceiling. 

The wraparound configuration can be programmed to display 360º imagery, which can be 2D or 3D virtual environments built in Unreal Engine. Professional high-end camera and lighting fixtures are seamlessly integrated with the virtual environment, immersing talent in the ultimate creative environment.