The Coldplay Video that Never Was

FX Design by Michel Gagné - Rough Storyboard by Mark Osbourne

In the Fall of 2011, I was commissioned to design the effects animation for an animated video of Coldplay's hit single, "Charlie Brown". The video was going to be directed by Mark Osbourne (director of Kung Fu Panda) and the animation production was to be handled by Passion Pictures in London. My responsibility on the project was to design and animate light graffities emanating from the characters.

My first task was to go over Mark's storyboards, and design the effects. Everything went well up to that point, and we were all getting excited about the potential of the project. As we waited to get the go ahead from the higher ups, decisions were made to take the Charlie Brow video in a completely different direction using live action instead of animation. Many of the ideas developed for the "Charlie Brown" video were then transposed to another song and used in the "Hurts Like Heaven" music video, for which I had no involvement.

I feel sad that I didn't get to animate these effects. It would have been so much fun and I think I could have done something pretty spectacular with them.

