Aggressive Lights Up The Set in Cris Cab's New Music Video

East Coast-based live action and design studio Aggressive is continuing their close relationship with rising singer-songwriter Cris Cab and Island Def Jam Music Group with a mesmerizing music video showcasing his new song “Loves Me Not.” Aggressive recently worked on the video for “Liar Liar,” Cab’s collaboration with superstar Pharrell Williams, which has gone on to be a worldwide megahit. “Loves Me Not” launched on June 18th.

Though exceptionally sleek and polished in sumptuous black and white, both videos employ slightly off-kilter techniques to convey the emotional turmoil at the heart of each song. While “Liar Liar” used an intriguing mirroring of the core images to represent the song’s theme of romantic duplicity, all without distracting from Cab or Pharrell’s presence, “Loves Me Not” employs an ever-changing, automated kinetic sculpture of hanging lightbulbs to present spectacular and unexpected designs and images.

The live action was shot entirely against greenscreen, enabling all the sets and the massive lightbulb sculpture to be created in CG. This presented a formidable creative and technical challenge for the Aggressive team, both on-set and in post. To capture the appropriate mood and evocative performances from the actors, the practical set would need to mimic all changes in lighting and the constant movement of the lightbulbs. To overcome this challenge, the Aggressive team crafted a practical lightbulb grid, which they were able to ignite in appropriate patterns, dimming and brightening as they saw fit.

“We’re very excited and proud to have had these two opportunities to create some great music videos and develop clever visual positioning for Cris,” says director Dan Shapiro, co-founder of Aggressive (with Alex Topaller). “These two pieces are not only bringing Cris to worldwide attention and the top of the charts, they are the new building blocks of his personal brand.”

Check out the images and credits below. If you’d like more information about Aggressive’s work on both Cris Cab videos, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Credits

Project: Cris Cab "Loves Me Not"

Artist: Cris Cab

Label: Island Def Jam

Commissioner: Mildred Delamota, Sharon Timure

Production Co: Aggressive

Executive Producers: Alex Topaller, Dan Shapiro

Directors: Alex Topaller, Dan Shapiro

Producer: Kelvin Craver

DOP: Sherman Johnson

Stylist: Janet Lin

Editor: Adam Wood

Art Directior: Alex Mikhaylov

CG Supervisor: Max Chelyadnikov

R&D: Sergey Movchan

Modeling: Max Chelyadnikov

Animation: Sergey Movchan, Max Chelyadnikov

Rendering: Max Chelyadnikov, Sergey Movchan

Compositing: Max Chelyadnikov, Larisa Misyukova, Roman Senko, Dan Shapiro

Tracking: Roman Senko, Arseny Gutov

Colorist: Rob Sciarratta