JAY-Z – The Story of O.J.

Brief Create the animated music video for ‘The Story of O.J.’, a track from JAY-Z’s hotly-anticipated visual album, 4:44. Approach…
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JAY-Z "The Story of O.J."
Case Study

Brief

Create the animated music video for ‘The Story of O.J.’, a track from JAY-Z’s hotly-anticipated visual album, 4:44.

Approach

JAY-Z’s concept for the piece draws on the stylistic conventions of theatrical cartoons from the 1930s-40s and highlights the many prejudices and stereotypes of the era. Our artists realized JAY-Z’s vision using a combination of hand-drawn cel animation, computer graphics, and painted backgrounds, collaborating with Titmouse to animate the original characters.

Impact

Over 100 million views on YouTube. The video was also Grammy-nominated.

WARNING: This video contains explicit language.

Credits
Credits

Production
Directors: JAY-Z & Mark Romanek via Anonymous Content

Design & Animation
Design & Animation: The Mill
Creative Director: Lisha Tan
Managing Director: Rani Melendez
Executive Creative Director: Phil Crowe
Executive Producer: Elizabeth Newman
Producer: Daniel Midgley
Production Coordinator: Lauren Wesley
Lead Character Design: Rustam Hasanov
Art Director: Tim Devlin
Title Design: Ilya Abulkhanov
Design: Nathan McKenna, George Fuentes, Ren Chen, Lisha Tan, Amy Graham
Animation: Justin Demetrician, Woosung Kang, Kyle Moore, Mikhail Pakhomov, Tim Devlin, Evan Parsons
3D Modeling: Sasha Vinogradova
2D Lead Artist: John Shirley
Storyboard Artist: Vince Wei

Character Animation
Character Animation: Titmouse
Producer: Ben Kalina
Animation Director: Mike Roush
Production Manager: Brendan O’Connor
Animation: Matt Augustin, Roberto Rosi, Richard Mather, Thom McDonnell, Daran Carlin-Weber, Jonathan Peartree, George Chung, Adam Temple, Brian Pak, Mike McCraw, Dante Buford, Marius Alecse, Connie Chan
Cleanup: Jan Naylor, Yi Song, Carl Aspuria, Anthony Parrotta

Editorial
Editing Company: Arcade Edit
Editor: Paul Martinez
Assistant Editor: Pete Dandrea

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