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Music Video

M.I.A - Popular

The Mill

themill.com

In this track, the British singer Mathangi Arulpragasam, better known as M.I.A, tackles the culture of influence by featuring her clone robot with artificial intelligence. The aim of this robot named M.I.A. is to become popular like the title of the song. The singer M.I.A trains her steel counterpart to reproduce her human expressions and gestures. But even though M.I.A. reproduces the dance steps and knows how to take selfies, the real singer decides to deactivate the robot. With this 'virtual' character, the director wanted to create a sense of unease to accentuate the satire of the influence. To meet his expectations, we used new technologies with artificial intelligence, animatronics, and old school video effects straight from the 80s.

CREW

VFX Studio : The Mill Paris

Executive producer Fabrice Damolini:
Production coordinators: Ghalia Chammat, Ewan Rosenstrauch
Post-producers: Benjamin Cathala, Stephanie Mollet, Marie Cécile Juglair
Ecd & vfx supervisor: Franck Lambertz
Head of cg: Guillaume Parra & Guillaume Ho
Flame artists: Franck Lambertz, Valentin Gingembre, Jao M’changama & Aurélien Teurlai
A.I. animation: French Faker
Animation: Alban Lelièvre, Alexandre Sauthier
Nuke artists: Maxence Peillon, Tytouan Botte
Motion designers: Olivier Jarry, Agathe Sayegh
Sfx video shoot: Shaun Severi
Colorist: Arthur Paux

Production : Division
Director : Arnaud Bresson
Producer : Laure Salgon