Dave Hodge Composes Bespoke Tracks for Katy Perry and Steven Klein’s Augmented Reality Films

Canadian musician, Dave Hodge of Broken Social Scene and new band Leisure Cruise has teamed up with creative technology and VFX studio, The Mill and director Steven Klein to bring W’s September cover star, Katy Perry, to life. Breaking the rules of photography, the magazine launches a special collector’s edition that pairs with an interactive augmented reality app, Beyond the Page. This ‘making of’ clip below features Finger Music’s Cameron Thompkins' original track.

Directed and conceptualised by Steven Klein, the interactive cover features a video and audio message from Katy Perry set against a surreal, cinematic Paris cityscape. To launch the issue promoting the picture as a living entity, The Mill approached Finger Music to create the sound for the off-the-page experience.

Dave Hodge created bespoke soundscapes for the nine films in Katy Perry’s AR. Hodge is a member of Broken Social Scene, and recently conceived band Leisure Cruise, as well as co-founder of commercial music company Finger Music.  

Commenting on approaching the brief for the project, Dave Hodge says, “Steven Klein was handling the creative brief directly and wanted a moody landscape of sound design and surreal Paris based cityscapes. For the main film, which is the digital head, the brief was to create bits and pieces of what's happening on multiple screens at the same time, without getting cacophonic. We were also working with Katy's voice, which states the main message of the project, and a couple of clips from her songs, mixing in subtlety here and there.” 

Stretching the boundaries of print, the app activates content featuring augmented reality and three-dimensional visual effects to create multidimensional experiences when scanned over the cover and four of the magazine’s features. 

“Steven had a very clear vision for what he was after and The Mill had a good handle on the creative flow of the project. It’s always a pleasure to work on a project where everyone is agreeing on things. There's often so many cooks on the music end that it can chip away at the focus. But in this case, we all had fun and made some cool stuff together, and were all on the same page. I love that,” concludes Dave. 

W’s September 2017 issue is third in a series from the publication, aimed at enhancing the print product to make it collectable.