VH1 First Person

VH1 approached director Rodney Ascher about developing an episodic biographical series created entirely with Adobe After Effects animation. Ascher then asked me if I would come on board as producer of the project to help flesh out and develop the idea, build the team and execute. After Effects animation is used extensively in flashy show bumpers, music videos and commercials, but at the time no one had ever tried to create an entire show using it.

The premise of the show was based around rock stars and celebrities speaking directly to the audience, telling their life story in their own words. The show would start with the star in a studio, looking directly into the camera, before moving on to a series of highly detailed After Effects animations illustrating stories from the celebrity’s life, narrated by the celebrity’s own voice.

Ascher is a pioneer in the world of After Effects animation. An established commercial director from Miami doing mostly live action, he began experimenting with After Effects animation in the mid 90’s, turning out a series of seminal short films and music videos both with and without longtime partner Syd Garret. Ascher pioneered a process now referred to as “photomation” where photographs are cut into separate regions and then animated giving two dimensional photos motion and a 3 dimensional feel. As it turned out this technique was perfect for animating stock photography and well suited for this type of show, where a celebrity might be describing a story where no footage was available. Also, with After Effects multiple forms of media can be collaged into a single moving image - for instance a single shot might include a landscape of band photographs, news footage, old album covers, fan polaroids,1970’s playboy magazines, comic books etc ...

I oversaw a team of 5 artists and animators working out of MTV’s west coast headquarters. I also produced several complicated live action shoots - locations included a burlesque theater on Hollywood Blvd, a beach in Malibu, Hollywood’s Roosevelt Hotel, and MTV’s green screen stages.

The final pilot was one of the most complicated projects in VH1’s history and we delivered on schedule and on budget. It was officially greenlit by VH1 but the network was not able to secure a major celebrity for the first episode before Ascher started on another project. The initial pilot covered the life of Gene Simmons from KISS. Further pilots were in development around David Lee Roth from Van Halen and Dave Navarro from Janes Addiction.

Test clip (shot on the roof of my apt. in Hollywood):