The Starlit World of Weezer

Knowing he needed Instagram and Tik-Tok videos to accompany the fourth installment of his SZNZ project, “SZNZ: Winter”, Weezer lead Rivers Cuomo reached out to Los Angeles designer Peter Quinn, who is known for his work with Snoop Dog, Will Smith, “Stranger Things”, James Corden and Serena Williams to name a few.

Quinn brought his trademark visual style to the track “Dark Enough to See the Stars,” creating a lush, star-filled moonscape. We talked with him about his process, including how he used Trapcode Particular, Shine, Starglow and other Red Giant tools.

Please tell us about yourself.

Quinn: I'm a one-man-army making motion design and VFX videos for brands and celebrities. I make all types of things for social media ads, broadcast TV and a few music videos.

I've been lucky to work with quite a few celebrities in the past two years. Each project has vastly different creative ideas and directions, and I'm always needing to dig deeper into my toolbox for new ideas and new techniques.

How did you get involved with the “Dark Enough to See the Stars” video?

Quinn: I had been having success on Instagram and TikTok with various viral videos for myself and other celebrities and was lucky enough to get an offer to come and spend a day with Rivers to brainstorm some video ideas and I shot several videos with the intention of using them to accompany Instagram and TikTok launches of songs from the new Weezer album.

Tell us about your process.

Quinn: Weezer sent me the raw tracks from their new “SZNZ: Winter” album and I listened to the songs over and over again, playing them around the house, in the car and while working until I was really familiar with them.

For the “Dark Enough to See the Stars” video, I thought it would be cool to take a literal approach and put stars and planets into the live-action footage while Rivers played the song. I got a few photos of the studio where Rivers writes all the Weezer songs ahead of time, and then sketched out my idea and sent it to them for feedback.

I started with my footage of Rivers playing the song in his studio, and I used the 3D tracker in After Effects to get the camera position in preparation of building out the 3D scene. I used Trapcode Particular to add stars followed by the moonscape floor, which I created in Cinema 4D.

More stars were placed in the 3D positions of actual lights in the studio to create a visual continuity as the video shifts between the base and treated footage. Trapcode Starglow added a nice look to the stars.

How did you handle roto and the dissolving particle edge treatment?

Quinn: I tried to find an automated process for the roto but ended up manually creating a pretty tight junk matte. I took multiple passes with After Effect’s Roto Brush to further fine tune the matte, which was very time consuming. Since I couldn't use greenscreen but had the complex background in the studio, Roto Brush had a very hard time isolating the figure. I needed to work almost entirely frame-by-frame to get the matte ready.

I wanted a slightly “Lord of the Rings” vibe to the edges of Rivers' figure and came up with a neat trick to use Trapcode Shine to push pixels outside his outline. I made a matte with that and then used Particular to emit particles from just that edge. That got me pretty close to what I wanted, but I found that adding some turbulent displacement and a little Trapcode Starglow brought me a more fantastical vibe that I was really happy with.

For the finished look, I used some very subtle Magic Bullet Looks mostly to add a little film grain and chromatic aberration to the edges. Trapcode Horizon was used for the background.

What is a common aspect of all the projects you work on?

Quinn: I'm a big fan of speed and efficiency. I am slightly obsessed with finding the most efficient ways to do almost everything, and I am constantly looking for new creative projects. I'm a massive fan of Maxon One because I get pretty much everything I ever need.

“I'm a massive fan of Maxon One because I get pretty much everything I ever need.”
– Peter Quinn

You also create After Effects scripts and plugins, right?

Quinn: I have a few tools available on Aescripts.com. The most popular is PQ Grit Kit. It’s a giant library of animated real textures and PQ Art Parts, which are hand-painted, illustrated, scribbled wipe and windows designed for use as luma mattes in After Effects.

I use both of those a lot in my projects, and the first music video I made for Snoop was made entirely with both of those packs. You'll see a few uses of Starglow in that video too, where I made Snoop’s eyes glow red.

What have you been working on lately?

Quinn: Recently, I’ve been plotting some videos with some new celebrities that I can’t mention yet. Needless to say, though, they’ll have their own unique visual effects.