Music Video Effects with Projections – Imagine Dragons: Believer

Published on December 1, 2017

Cinematography & Filmmaking

Special effects lighting are very popular in music videos. Just like the clip Believer from Imagine Dragons. They used many lasers, huge LED panels and professional projectors. A great show and not so easy to recreate if you’re on a budget.

That’s why we came up with the idea to recreate some of the lighting effects with a simple projector. The idea actually came from Aputure’s video on using a projector as a special effect light.

Imagine Dragons – Believer

Earlier this year Adobe teamed up with Imagine Dragons for a fun contest. Participants could download the original clips from the music video and make their edit. From the thousands of people who signed up , 25 winners where selected.

It’s really fun to see the different perspectives by every creator. Where one would add a lot of visual effects, the other would focus more on creative cuts and transitions. You can watch the top 25 here on Adobe – Make the Cut.

Rocketstock Canvas

For the projection we used several items from Canvas, a video pack from Rocketstock with over 100 loop-able backgrounds in different styles. They where kind enough to sponsor this episode!

Music and other Assets

The music is named My Time and comes from Premiumbeat and the laser clip  came from Shutterstock and so did the bokeh clip.
For the projection on the floor, we designed and animated the grid our self, which can also be downloaded here.