Musicians are constantly looking for unique ways to stand apart from the competition. Some take to dramatic theatrics, others use astronomical budgets for fancy effects, but it takes a real visionary to think outside the box and take a more creative route. Meet Melanie Page, the creative mastermind behind J. Robert Youngtown’s stop motion animation music video, “For What You Do.”

To create the music video, Melanie used Final Cut Pro and iStopMotion to do the majority of the “hard work.” She listened to the song repeatedly until she could visualize her interpretation of the lyrics and then ran with it. iStopMotion’s audio syncing capability was particularly helpful in this animation; Melanie was able to preview what she had created to ensure it matched the timing of the music. The onion skinning feature allowed her to match the frames to flawlessly execute a cohesive story.

Melanie uses 2D characters made out of paper and cardboard to ensure ease of movement, and she recommends it to new animators. Six weeks of long days and even longer nights clearly paid off with this polished final product. When J. Robert Youngtown asked Melanie to create something similar to a previous video for his next music video, she knew Boinx’s iStopMotion would be the tool to use.

“With all the new ways of doing stop motion animation I choose to do it the old school way so my animations have a certain style and texture to them,” she explains.

For more on Melanie, be sure to visit her Vimeo page here!