The Chemical Brothers have a new song by the name of Wide Open.
Not only does it feature the vocal talents of Beck, but its music video uses some clever visual trickery to make a dancer transform into something that looks like it came out of a 3D printer’s heatbed.
While this may sound like they’ve made a woman look like a doll (much like CADHouse’s Robotica mannequin), the music video instead takes the route of a lattice structure – slowly turning the dancer into a semi-see-through being that is as equally beautiful as it is terrifying.
The most impressive part of the video isn’t the dancer’s transformation, but rather the extremely labour-intensive task of creating the lighting effects passing through her body.
In videogames this is easier to achieve (and is regularly done with enemies such as reincarnated skeletons) thanks to game engines’ ability to dynamically cast light on and through objects. In film, that light needs to be manually created, and the editor’s did a sterling job making you believe the dancer is filled with holes.
We’ve neglected to talk about the actual music that these clever visuals are paired because that’s far more subjective. Give it a listen and, if you like it, also check out the album it’s from called Born In The Echoes.