Using over 5,000 unique AI-generated frames with prompts relating to the lyrics of “Out of the Blue”, director, John Nikolopoulos then placed the images frame by frame to create a retro-futuristic masterpiece.
From their album, Parallel Universe (available on Eclipse Records), SiXforNinE says this of the video for “Out of the Blue”,
We were in absolute awe – jaw dropping, eyes wide open – when John Nikolopoulos presented us the ‘Out Of The Blue’ music video. This song has a very powerful story behind it, very personal for us. It has to do with the loss of a beloved person, the effort to get back in balance, at the same time not trying to forget, but to handle the pain. There was no one better than Zee to handle this journey… a robot with emotions, travelling through parallel universes, seeking his parents!
John adds,
I always had it in my mind to do a video for this song, envisioning a different format than the classic performance clips we did for ‘Bullet Off It’s Course’ and ‘Every Cloud Has A Silver Lining’. What I came up with involved creating a video with a vertical orientation, specifically for mobile viewing, using the stop-motion technique. During the Autumn of 2022, I started experimenting with creating AI-generated images through Midjourney. It didn’t take long for me to make the connection with the Out Of The Blue project. From January until early March 2023, I had gathered over 5,000 designs, writing prompts related to the lyrics of the song and its story, but also related to other songs from this and the previous album of the band. The style I chose for all the designs is a retro futurism style, inspired by old posters of vintage sci-fi movies and comics that I liked, because I believe it both suited the story of Zee and the technical aspect of vertical orientation for mobile viewing. Subsequently, these designs went through some initial processing using Photoshop and Lightroom to prepare them for the final video editing stage alongside the song. That’s how the story of Zee was born. Zee was a little robot created by a pair of scientists to help them discover a parallel universe. Zee had spent its entire life in the laboratory, with the scientists taking care of it and teaching it everything about life and human emotions, making it a member of their family. But one day, a terrible accident occurred during an experiment, and the scientists vanished, leaving the little robot all alone. Not knowing what else to do, Zee decided to venture out of the laboratory for the first time in its life and travel through the multiverse to find the ones it missed. This video is a story of his journey longing to reunite with those dear to his robotic heart.
Watch “Out of the Blue” below
