Limitation Begets Innovation. Embrace It.
New insights for creating in these crazy times forged from the making of the OG and multi-award-winning video chat music video, “Hibi No Neiro.”
Don’t look now but the dystopian nightmare that you’ve paid good money to see on more than one occasion is now free-to-play and screening via your windowpane, phone, and reflection in your loved one’s eyes. For the first time in a while, the entire planet is united by a single acronym — WTF?!
So what are you going to do about it? I mean aside from installing electronic Japanese toilet seats, growing a beard, and suspiciously side-eyeing your neighbors for sneaking the companionship of visiting friends?
Well, the first thing you could do is to tell any person you know working in healthcare, thank you and we LOVE you! The second thing you can do is to summon whatever grey matter you have left after weeks of DFH (Drinking From Home) to make the world a slightly less scary place. You may not realize this but WE, ME included, need YOU.
But before I get into the HOW maybe I should answer the question that according to this market research fact sheet I’m holding, you’ll be asking yourself right… Now.
Who is this guy and why does reading his delightful prose remind me of warm baths and the smell of fresh crumpets?
My name is Hal Kirkland, I’m a Writer, Director, and Creative Director at the wonderful innovation studio and production company, Tool of North America. I’ve traversed a range of industries from advertising to media art to film and have been fortunate enough to get-away-with bringing some wonderful things to life.
One such thing was the music video for a song called “Hibi No Neiro.” A music video that faced similar production limitations to the ones we face right now, yet still managed to connect with the world anyway.
This film has been referenced a lot recently because the multi-screen aesthetic looks like a Zoom conference call (a decade before Zoom conferences) and having revisited it recently, I found that it has so much more to teach us about how we can be approaching content creation right now.
If you haven’t seen it, please watch it below. I’ll go reheat some strudel in the meantime. If you’d like some click the little circle with the clapping hands. It’ll be ready when you’re done.
First, a little backstory
I created this piece for a Japanese indie band called Sour with three very talented people including my then-creative partner, Masa Kawamura, and Who Fu — directing duo Magico Nakamura and Masayoshi Nakamura). Hello, you scallywags.
The song “Hibi No Neiro”, when translated means, The Tone of Everyday. The lyrics tell of the importance of expressing your individuality in order to contribute to something bigger than yourself.
It’s easy to see how the theme of the song was translated in our final execution, however, much of the inspiration was hatched from the practical challenges we faced. They are presented here in big words for the bathroom scrollers.
Rather than presenting an insurmountable obstacle, we instead viewed it as a very specific brief we needed to crack. So we stopped identifying what we didn’t have and started thinking about what we could do with what we did.
Note to creators: Stop ______ , Start experimenting.
We didn’t have a fancy camera, but we did have webcams. Rather than being a hindrance, webcams meant that we could experiment anytime we pleased and with no expectation of everything having to be perfect — and that is freeing.
Our Smartphones offer even more experimental freedom with much higher quality. Apps also provide quick ways to test effects, animations, composition, and EVERYTHING else. So if you’re interested in making, just shhhhh and get experimenting. It’s also an exceptional distraction from your reality imploding. Here are a few recent experiments in Insta G with my son, Lando. (Find us on IG:@halk)
Search for meaning as you mean it. And mean it.
We had come up with a lot of initial ideas and I’d spent a decent chunk of time experimenting with webcams but even after a few tests, the video chat technique still wasn’t our leading concept.
It was only while defining our story, or ™Mythology®, as I call it now, that our purpose started to solidify. This was our throughline:
“Hibi No Neiro” is a music video that unites fans of a Japanese band from around the world via webcams.
Uniting people via technology was in every advertising brief we were seeing (not unlike now) but bringing people together to create something extraordinary and facilitating interconnectedness gave the project meaning. This leads to an important question about what you’re creating now…
Is your idea generous enough?
“Hibi No Neiro” gave its participants an outlet and it rewarded them by including them in a spectacle. Right now, most people are walking away with after watching pandemic content is a sober feeling and a hopeful-ish glance at humanity prevailing.
Ask yourself if there’s a way to empower rather than to simply observe. We already know what we’re going through and it sucks. Can we instead find ways to give people the tools to act, design, educate, cook, communicate, and express how they’re really feeling? Can their contributions work in confluence to inspire others?
If you’re the one paying for the creative try making generosity the brief. A different script with a new logo over the same old visuals wasn’t going to cut it before. Why would it now? Give us something useful and we’ll remember you when the dust settles.
Don’t abandon art, we need it more than ever.
“Hibi No Neiro” may have hit home because it connected people, but I believe it stayed in people’s minds because it took something familiar and applied craft. And that craft created art. Remember art?
Art has a pretty solid track record when it comes to moving people—and guess what? It still exists! You only need to invest in it. Try starting with it, so we don’t see another crowdsourced window into isolation that we’ll have forgotten by breakfast. YOU, WE, US deserve more.
And don’t worry if you can’t imagine what this vision might be, put your faith into creators that make a living by imagining new things for you. Find one you like and TRUST them. Sour (The band) didn’t see the music video till it was done. But the freedom they gave us allowed it to be great.
So you have to film at someone’s home. Try harder.
Hibi No Neiro often gets confused for a user-generated music video because it’s filmed with webcams and because people are filmed mostly at home. It’s really a meticulously choreographed demonstration of remote directing. It only looks fun and casual because it’s supposed to.
If you’re a creator or even a client that feels limited by having to shoot remotely or at someone’s house, try a little harder to create a unique perspective. Here are a few topline considerations:
Set Design: The best production designers in the world are home right now and they have studios where they can make all kinds of wonderful things safely. These things can then be safely delivered to anywhere.
Lighting: Lighting can transform any space adding depth, different feelings, otherworldly dimensions. Something as simple as a closet can become an entirely new space.
Composition: Where the subject stands, how the room shapes around them, what colors the person is wearing, what props are in view can create so many visual variations. Mix it up. Please.
Movement: How can the camera move? Is it a phone? Can it be swung? Can it dance? There are 360 perfectly good degrees to capture from. How could dramatic movement influence a simple interview?
Anyway, there are 42 or so more. I need to save some for our next phone call when you and I realize we should have gotten matching tattoos years ago.
A swift peek at our process
As my way of saying thank you for reading this far, I thought it would be helpful to speed through some of our processes. Maybe it’ll help you plan yours.
Meticulously plan simplicity
We began with sketches and detailed Photoshop comps until we found directions worth testing. Photoshop layers and vast Illustrator artboards helped us plan animation sequences and made it easy to translate our ideas into storyboards.
There is always time to test
When we had something we liked we’d began to film ourselves. This allowed us to test the timing of every action and sequence. If something failed, we tweaked it. If something worked, we challenged ourselves to level it up.
Create like you expect the entire planet to see it
Creatives get accused of creating ideas simply to win awards and in some cases, that’s fair because their idea either does nothing for the brand/band, didn’t “actually” connect with anyone, and/or lacked meaning.
However, the ambition to create something that is worthy of international recognition, be it at an award show or even in the conversations of the audience it’s created for, should always be the objective.
We imagined the whole world seeing this film from the get-go and we did everything we could to ensure it lived up to that dream. The beauty of our team was that everyone continually pushed each other to make every aspect better. We were united by our shared ambition. If you find people like that, value them like Willy Wonka’s Golden Tickets.
Have fun, damn you!
We filmed an entire version of the music video just featuring us. We then broke it apart and sent every person their singular film. Next, we arranged times to film and directed them remotely or in person. Our shooting schedule, which accounted for over 80 people all over the world, was intense.
We kept action simple, but the timing rigid. Even so, it was a challenge to ensure it all lined up. Most importantly we made sure everyone that was generously donating their time kept smiling. We were very grateful and we made sure they knew it. In which case thanks, everyone. Again.
Reward humanity for their humanity
From the beginning, it was important for me that this film celebrated individuality, acceptance, unity, and complete strangers working together to accomplish something f**king amazing. It’s more important than ever to reward audiences by surprising and delighting them at every turn.
We’ll LOVE you for it.
The final countdown
So there we were huddled on Magico and Masayoshi’s couch, in their petite New York apartment at 3.a.m. and Masayoshi, who had handled the majority of the editing (you legend!) pressed play. It was the first time any of us had seen it fully assembled and there may have been a tear or two. Maybe someone had been cutting onions, I can’t remember. One thing was for certain, a cute little music video for a Japanese indie band called Sour truly moved four very exhausted creators. Fortunately, the rest of the world seemed to like it too—with some surprising results.
What happened next?
The music video started to be shared. People wrote some nice things about it and wanted to talk about it. We got invited to share stories at festivals all over the world and it was fortunate enough to pick up more shiny things than any other music video in the world that year. Sour got lots of TV interviews too and their album broke into the U.S. music market. The music video even permanently loops on a museum wall or two. All very positive things.
More surprising was that the multi-screened visual style was globally adopted by advertising, music videos, schools, biscuit companies, and a whole manner of other makers.
Eventually, and this is maybe my favorite part, it became a Japanese wedding meme. People lovingly copied it scene for scene as a beautiful message to the bride and groom. And there are hundreds of these. Hats off to those friends that recreated this for people they love. It‘s a bigger gift than a set of steak knives.
Where’s my strudel and what do I do now?
“Hibi No Neiro” is just one way to push the boundaries of the familiar to create a little magic. There are so many other ways in.
People are fatigued enough by their own experience and don’t deserve to be fatigued by a litany of the same visuals, messages, and stories. So innovate, and experiment! It’s OUR duty to make US smile, belly laugh, be distracted, feel entertained, or give US something entirely new to think about.
And WHEN you get it right. your idea, message, or story may even bring genuine light to people when they need it most. How we creatively problem solve is already evolving exponentially. What happens if you embrace that change right now?
…
And if you’re stuck for ideas, now that I’ve finished the longest medium article in history, hit me up and let’s do strudel. I hope it’s not just me but I have a crazy feeling we’re going to be best of friends.
Hal
