Watch Noni-mouse’s VFX Heavy New Video ‘Perry Road’

Mumbai producer-singer Radhapriya Gupta aka noni-mouse is quite aware of the idiom ‘too many cooks spoil the broth’ but she’s always been keen on working with as many people as possible. She says about working with seven filmmakers and animators for her new video “Perry Road,” off her debut EP noni-pop, “If the video is any good, it’s because so many people did such a good job on their part. It just makes it so much more fun.”

Noni-mouse’s first video for “Closer To You” also called on friends and strangers alike to send in video footage that was then edited, but for “Perry Road,” the producer wanted to work with Mumbai-based composer and filmmaker/editor Adith Anande. The result was a visual effects bonanza, employing clever frames, Windows 98-era dialog boxes, videogame simulation and trippy 3D filters and objects. Anande says, “We didn’t know if there was going to be any uniformity to it, but then we decided to pick one location and one jacket [in the video] that makes it look uniform. Once we gave it over to the editors, we didn’t really expect anything.”

Noni-mouse aka Radhapriya Gupta in a still from the video for ‘Perry Road.’ Photo: Courtesy of the artist

After Anande, the rest of the team came on board – director of photography (and also singer-songwriter) Ronit Sarkar, producers Viraj Tadwalkar and Esha Paul and a total of five animators/VFX artists and editors including Aniruddh Mehta, Prajjwal Chandra, Abhimanyu Balasubramanyam, Nikunj Patel and Joey Katare. Anande says, “I work more in ads and it’s always fun to turn back into the indie scene and work with someone. There’s a little more freedom over here.”

A video with these many additions would probably mean a lot of work at the editing table. Anande and Balasubramanyam took on it and the latter says it became “an experimental edit in the truest sense.” Balasubramanyam says, “I would brainstorm on ideas of what to do every four seconds in the track, and then see if I could somehow connect it together.” Gupta, who was also helming a video project of this level for the first time, says, “As far as the final visual is concerned, we didn’t have any idea what it might look like. We were kind of shooting in the dark with this project. We told them to go crazy so that’s why the results are so varied.”

While there’s more material in the works, noni-mouse is currently in Berlin on an 11-day scholarship as part of Goethe Talents 2019, involving performances, jam sessions and studio visits.

Watch the video for “Perry Road” below.