Journey Through a Fractured Landscape of Memories in Sam Davis’ 3D Odyssey for ‘For Those I Love’
DadBod director Sam Davis' new project takes the form of a dreamlike 3D world in For Those I Love's new music video for 'Birthday'.
The video takes us through an epic journey of scenes that take influence from artist Dave Balfe's life growing up in Dublin. Each 3D environment was painstakingly created using a technique called photogrammetry, which consists of taking hundreds of photos of a real life environment which are then stitched together to create a 3D version of the world.
Sam says: "tens of thousands of photos were stitched together using AI to produce giant 3D models. We were then able to fly a camera seamlessly through this digital world mimicking the movement of thought. These scenes, inspired by long chats with Dave from the band, and from the lyrics themselves, touch on the past, loss, freedom and addiction. Something we all face at some point. I have wanted to explore photogrammetry for a couple of years with the idea of creating a giant world from it. Hearing of how this track was put together, through the use of old recordings, WhatsApp messages and samples, it made a lot sense to create a video in a similar way - taking thousands of images in order to create one solid piece.
The use of photogrammetry seemed to pair up with visualising memories, as you often only remember the core of the memory - the person you were talking to, the item you were holding etc. Photogrammetry works in a similar way. The person or object that appears most in the collection of images is generated with the most accuracy, leaving everything else to distort."
The project was ambitious from the start, and was only made possible by the efforts of two incredible 3D VFX artists, Brent Patterson and George Dyson (AKA Greedy Goons). A special thanks goes to Brent Patterson (Digital Media professor at SUNY Buffalo State) for being the inspiration behind the technique, and guiding hand along the way.
Click here for more of Sam's work.
