Anson Kong “Love Is On The Way” Music Video CG | Making Of - Late Studio | Hong Kong Animation Studio

For the second time, Late Studio created the CG animation and effects for Anson Kong, a member of MakerVille’s MIRROR, this time for his new music video “Love Is On The Way”. The production was full of challenges and unexpected setbacks, but the work was released on schedule. In this making-of, we take a closer look at the CG post-production behind the “Love Is On The Way” music video.

DirectorHimtos Lam, Benjamin ChoiProduction CoordinatorAlex YiuCGLate StudioCG DirectorKaicho WongCG ArtistCindy Chow, Yuki Tong, Simon Sze, Timmy Liao, Yuko Lee, Sally Yeung, Kat Kei, Himtos Lam, Benjamin Choi

Opening title: the “Love Is On The Way” MV title appears in a magical particle style.

Sparkling magical CG effects: surrounded by magic, a mannequin transforms into AK for a stylish, enchanting entrance.

Invisible men: Anson Kong dances with magical invisible men as he wins over the female lead, Mia.

Mia’s transformation: led by AK, Mia is also wrapped in magic and transforms in style.

Portal: AK and the dancers pass through a magic portal and keep dancing.

Magic world: AK dances in a magical world, where the sky was replaced with CG.

The last dance: as the magic world begins to fade, AK and Mia share a final dance.

MV Pre-production

The “Love Is On The Way” MV uses many “magical” CG effects throughout, so we began gathering references and planning the effects direction early in pre-production. The most extensive were particle effects in a “classic Michael Jackson style”, followed by the CG magic portal and the CG magic sky.

3D CG Effects Animation

After the MV footage was shot, we began working on the shots that needed CG animation, creating CG effects animation in Blender to match the footage, along with the magical effects and particles required for certain shots.

VFX and Compositing

For this project we used After Effects for compositing and output. Besides the 3D effects from Blender, we blended in many effects elements to enrich the frame, and fine-tuned the look during compositing.

CG title animation: the MV title was composited in After Effects, using multiple layers of magical particles to create rich motion.

CG magical particles: magical particles surround Anson Kong.

Invisible man VFX: we masked out the green head, filled in the scene with a clean plate, restored the hat and collar, and finally added the invisible-man distortion effect to the head.

Mia’s transformation: magical particles swirl around the female lead as the scene changes with her transformation.

CG magic portal: the portal layer was created in 3D and composited with the scene in post.

Behind the Scenes

We had only one night to shoot, and every scene was a night scene, which meant we had to finish before dawn. In the end, we shot right until morning and only just made it!