Dezeen Magazine

Colourless scenes whizz past during music video for The Road

Music: director Julien Lassort's animation to accompany ALB's track The Road depicts a metaphorical journey through life using simple black and white imagery.

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Lassort was invited by his producers Solab Pictures to work on the music video for French electro-pop artist Clément Daquin – better known as ALB.

ALB The Road music video

As the track is called The Road, the director animated a series of journeys through various landscapes and spaces – some more abstract than others – that he merged together.

ALB The Road music video

"The idea was to tell the story of a human's time on earth and their effect on nature, using the metaphor of the road," Lassort told Dezeen.

ALB The Road music video

The journey takes the viewer through several scenarios that appear to whizz past on either side as if passing a moving vehicle. These include growing forests and towering buildings – all depicted in black and white.

ALB The Road music video

"For me the path is already marked out," said Lassort. "There are all these symbols of life, all on a path that keep going forward until a certain and common ending: death."

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After a series of skulls have appeared, Lassort introduces a splash of hue to the otherwise colourless visuals through images of leaves and plants to provide "a touch of hope" to the otherwise sombre message.

ALB The Road music video

The video returns to black and white for the end scene, in which images of planets and stars in space are provided as a metaphor for the infinite cycle of life.

ALB The Road music video

Throughout the sequence, the animation and transitions create a steady rhythm that follows the beat of the music.

ALB The Road music video

"I wanted to make an hypnotic video that would totally match the rhythm and lyrics," the director said. "The film is like an endless immersion inside an evolving world and this is what the track sounds like to me."

ALB The Road music video

"I have a visual experience with music," Lassort said. "When I study a track for the first time, forms and colours come to my mind as a first impression."

ALB The Road music video

Lassort and his team spent about a month working on the project and used software including C4D, After Effects and Flash to create the effects.

The Road is taken from ALB's 2014 album Come Out! It's Beautiful.