Seattle motion designer/3D artist Ian Frederick raced the clock for 10 days to complete these arresting CG concert loops for LA-based DJ/producer NGHTMRE, just in time for the September 1 launch of his Sonic Wars Tour.

Ian Frederick: “NGHTMRE’s creative team has done a great job crafting a really interesting world that is a lot of fun to design within and explore. There’s this alternate universe within dreams called the DRMVRSE where a new element called UNSOUND is discovered.

“It’s sort of this cross between science fiction tech and psychedelic inner-mind stuff. The brief centered around NGHTMRE’s new Sonic Wars Tour, where a war is happening within the DRMVRSE, so it called for mechs equipped with sonic weapons and other abstract war-like machines.
 

“There wasn’t much time for storyboarding, sketches, or large revisions, it was a lot of me going with my gut, thinking of a cool idea, and then just executing exactly that.”

 
“But since this is all happening within this dream-like alternate reality, they wanted to see some cool simulated representations of what UNSOUND could look like and other more psychedelic aspects of this dream world. It was really a fun space to explore.

“The biggest challenge was the timeline. I only had 10 days from start to finish to create 20 unique visuals. Typically, I am given a few weeks for each individual visual, so this was an all-out sprint. Some days I worked 18 hours straight. I wish I had more time, but I can’t remember a project where I didn’t wish for more time.

“It required a lot of rapid decision-making on my part. There wasn’t much time for storyboarding, sketches, or large revisions, it was a lot of me going with my gut, thinking of a cool idea, and then just executing exactly that.

“Although it was exhausting, I had a lot of fun. I love dubstep and bass music, so my passion for the music and being a part of crafting the live experience for fellow concert-goers was what kept me going during the design sprint.”
 
 

 
Client: NGHTMRE

Director/animator: Ian Frederick