Usher, H.E.R.

"Risk It All"

Final music video on YT

The Brief

Towards the end of 2023, when I was working at UPP Advertising, we were approached by the director Dave Mayers. By that time we collaborated with him on couple of projects and had a good rapport. He needed help with post on an upcoming music video — a collaboration between Usher and H.E.R.

The idea was based around a simple setup, with the singers at the center of the frame most of the time, rotating and creating the echo print effect. There were also other scenes with dancers and multiplication VFX, and a passage with a collage of the singers appearing and disappearing into each other.

Not a heavy CG work per say — but lots of shots, lots of comp, and a very tight deadline. Let’s fucking go!

The Power of Flame

I was brought on board from the beginning by our VFX Supervisor / CEO Jan Malíř, as his right hand — acting as an art director to help figure out the trail effect. At this point, I had moved on from being a Head of 2D / compositor, and my main tools for design were After Effects and Resolve.

But after initial tests with both programs, I realized there was absolutely no chance of using them. To create the echo print effect, you have to take tons and tons of super long footage and speed it up to crazy percentages to get that fast spin with trails.

But because we had to comp in linear 16-bit fp ACEScg EXRs, there was no fucking way you could churn through that kind of data in After Effects. The AE engine just dies. And Resolve wasn’t working either — it lacks the necessary effects and heavy compositing features.

Nuke handles EXRs well, but it lacks timeline and editing tools — and we needed to work in both comp and timeline modes, switching back and forth.

So, it had to be Autodesk Flame. It may be a dinosaur, but it’s absolutely unmatched in giving artists the speed and flexibility to do all these kinds of operations in one package. All hail Flame :) And fuck Autodesk for not giving it proper love and support. But lately, it seems the tides are turning for the better...

Flame by Autodesk

The Process

To be able to develop the effect, share setups, stay close to the team, and work efficiently, I had to return from Design department to 2D — and after a couple of years, sit behind Flame again. Dust off some old fossilized skills — and here we go.

The workload was split. As Flame artists, we handled all the echo print shots. Nuke artists handled all the other shots — people multiplication, retouching, roto, and background fixes. We also asked for help from our company’s film department to bring in more Nuke artists.

Photo by Lukasz Omasta

The Echo Print

The DOP was again Dave’s longtime collaborator Scott Cunningham. He lit the warehouse and the talent beautifully — hats off. A very simple setup at its core, but very elegantly handled.

We had super long takes of the main stars and dancers standing and doing poses on a turntable. We had to find the right amount of timewarp to get the speed contrast — the main performers moving slowly, with the “ghosts” around them spinning super fast.

The great thing in Flame is that the feedback/echo/motion blur effect includes both timewarp and trail length in one tool — so it considers all available frames in one operation.

It was about finding a subtle balance — not overpowering the performances with crazy ghost effects. We also used AI-generated depth maps directly in Flame to push or pull parts of the performers in 3D space, so it didn’t just look like a flat screen effect.

It’s always cool to see your work used as visual reference out there on the interwebs ;)

Great reference resource site: Eyecandy

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The Conclusion

I was also responsible for the middle passage where the two singers continuously appear and disappear into each other. I had to find a subtle visual approach that worked with the rhythm of the song. At the last minute, I also worked on the final moments where we see the singers, creating a transition between the two and added some gentle trails for the touching ending.

This was the biggest challenge — and the key takeaway from the whole project: finding the balance for the whole video, not overpowering the performance with FX.

It was great to spend time with our compositors again — and back in Flame after quite a while.

Huge shoutout to the one and only colorist Pavel Marko for the beautiful grade!