Kanye West, rapper, entrepreneur, producer, fashion designer and celebrity daddy. The man has single-handedly redefined what it means to be a hip-hop star and fan of breaded, processed fish products.
Yet for BLKKK SKKKN HEAD, the latest single from his Yeezus album, Kanye reached out for help to make the disturbing new monochrome, animated video.
Edinburgh’s Speech Graphics provided the technology, more commonly used in video games, to allow highly accurate lip-syching, allowing the digital Kanye to spit some mad rhymes in an extremely realistic way.
An interactive version of the video was also made available through the Kanye West website, allowing users to adjust the speed/frame rate of the video and take/share screenshots.
Speech Graphics co-founder Michael Berger told The Herald:
When we took the call from Hollywood they set us exceptionally tight deadlines. But we just could not say no to this amazing job.
When we animate speech we actually animate most of the face, because the skin moves, right up to the eyes. We even had his ears moving with the jaw motion. But our biggest challenge was to make Kanye’s face move naturally over the famous gold and diamond grill on his teeth.
Speech Graphics CEO Gregor Hofer added:
This has been an extraordinary project to work on. To make the most famous face in Hip Hop rap has been a surreal experience and the media furore has added to the intensity of working on the project. It just doesn’t get any bigger. This project has given us the chance to really show what our technology can do.
Transmedia. It’s real…
Class video. Here’s the version with nearly a million hits 🙂 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q604eed4ad0