How Shah Rule, Sammohit and Ikka Entered a New Universe in the Animated ‘Spaceship’ Video

Rappers Shah Rule and Sammohit travel across space to retrieve an “abducted homie” – who turns out to be New Delhi-based rapper Ikka – in the music video for their latest song “Spaceship.” The song and visuals are as interconnected as they come, with label Gully Gang enlisting Post Office studio in Mumbai to create an animated video that used a MetaHuman framework within the widely-known 3D tool Unreal engine (by Epic Games) to create space-hero avatars of the rappers.

Shah Rule recounts the experience as “incredibly unique at all stages,” from the pre-production to the time they were called in for 3D performance shoots for their in-video characters, which Post Office’s associate creative director Vaibhav Negi terms as the artists’ “digital double.” Shah Rule adds, “It was definitely surreal to see myself as an animated character in that specific space environment which we are only used to seeing in video games or movies.”

Post Office’s co-founder and chief creative officer Aditya Tawde says a common goal for both, musicians and video game makers is to build an immersive world for their audience and that’s where animation matters. Negi points to the success of a band like Gorillaz, who have a wholly virtual life and narrative through their music videos, often conveying “complex or abstract ideas.” He adds, “For ‘Spaceship,’ we wanted to showcase the extent of the artists’ ambition in a novel way, and animation helped us do that in a really unique manner.”

While the animation style on “Spaceship” is familiar – because the Unreal engine is a lot more freely used by animators everywhere – the attention to detail and the character design of each of the rappers makes the video stand out. Tawde says the process involved working closely with the artists and Gully Gang. Negi adds, “MetaHuman basically lets us create highly-realistic human characters in incredible new ways. Using photogrammetry, we created a 3D model of each of the artists using photographs and processed these images using the MetaHuman framework to create digital twins of them for the music video.” From using photoscan data to ensure the right face proportions to fine-tuning the way each frame of facial expressions was true to the artist’s real look, Negi says they even had the artists choose their own costumes in the video. “The costume played a vital role in making these avatars look authentic and all three of them were there to help us understand which fits suited their personality the best,” he says.

Gully Gang’s CEO and co-founder Chaitanya Kataria says the benefit of the MetaHuman framework was that the actual shoot for the video didn’t take much time at all. While he doesn’t get into whether an animated video like “Spaceship” turns out just as expensive as a full-scale live-action music video, Kataria says that “animation was our best bet” for this specific song. Previously, DIVINE’s video for “Baazigar” too featured an animated segment, created by animation artist and designer Sid G aka Too Sid.

When “Spaceship” looks like it’s straight out of a video game, the two worlds of gaming and music find yet another interaction through such projects. Post Office are keen to use this tech for more artists and their video needs. Negi says, “The story is always the king for us, and so many Indian artists have incredible narratives to share.” Tawde calls this intersection “creative bliss” for both artists and video directors. He adds, “We’d love to collaborate with more artists to bring their unique visions to life.”

Watch the video for “Spaceship” below.