nice things

In a perfect CVW scenario, we quietly produce really awesome stuff, and then someone else sees it and wants to work with us, and so on. For the most part, our new clients come via referrals from current clients, former employees, and personal connections. And sometimes, they come from the internet.

When we made this video for songwriter Travis Linville last year, the joy was in the work itself. We were able to concept, design, and animate the whole thing according to our ideas and wants, and we were really satisfied with it when it went live.

A few days later, we heard from Dualtone Records on behalf of musician Hayes Carll, who had seen the video on Travis’s socials. Carll had a new record coming out and was looking for someone to animate a music video for one of the singles.

Two or three phone calls and a couple of pitched treatments later, our artistic direction was born: We’d lean into Hayes’s treatment of God as a human character visiting Earth and becoming increasingly dismayed with every interaction, but as a nod to the timelessness of the song’s sentiment, we wanted it to be in a fairytale, pop-up book style.

The preproduction on this one led to some technical and creative discussions we’ve never had before. How exactly do pop-up books work? Would God wear muted colors? What kinds of animals are least likely to go to jail? If God had a three-piece country band, which instruments would they play?

Hayes and his label were wonderful to work with—not only receptive to our artistic direction but collaborative and thoughtful in their feedback. They came armed with good ideas that absolutely made the project better. The single and video even nabbed a mention in the New York Times online!

If you’ve been ruminating lately on bad news or the general state of humanity, we hope this’ll speak to you. I think it will. Here’s “Nice Things”: