The creative studio, director Michał Misiński and singer-songwriter Dawid Podsiadło collaborated on the game universe’s expansion pack promo; live-action and animation merge to create the familiar, dark-future world within the cyberspace realm where the game’s heroine thrives.
Creative studio Juice collaborated with CD PROJEKT RED, director Michał Misiński, and Polish singer-songwriter Dawid Podsiadło to produce the music video promoting “Phantom Liberty,” a spy-thriller expansion set in the iconic Cyberpunk 2077 universe.
The story merges the game’s familiar, dark-future world with the cyberspace realm where heroine, So Mi thrives, creating script and visual language that offers players a glimpse into the exciting events of the Phantom Liberty expansion.
The project's key creative aspect was combining live-action footage with CG to breathe life into the game’s character, So Mi, played by an actress.
“This approach allowed for the conveyance of authentic emotions and added depth to the character,” explained Misiński.
The live-action shoot added cyberware mechanical body elements, created through prosthetics makeup and later enriched by CG, which seamlessly integrated the actress with the Cyberpunk 2077 universe, bringing her character to life.
“In the script, So Mi is being connected to the world that infects her, all you can see after she plugs into the Net we developed in full CGI,” shared CG supervisor Jakub Wrzalik. “Everything there is a projection from within the Net, which is an important element of Cyberpunk 2077 and the ‘Phantom Liberty’ expansion.”
“A music video set in the Cyberpunk 2077 world connects millions of viewers, and I wanted it to be a tribute to gamers but also a tribute to all the people involved from the production side,” added Misiński. “We were inspired by the purpose of creating something that would evoke emotions. I appreciate the CD PROJEKT RED team for believing in us wholeheartedly, both in terms of the script and its execution.”
Jakub Knapik, global art director at CD PROJEKT RED, commented, “Working on a project that combines the incredible emotional punch of the creative collaboration between Dawid Podsiadlo and our composers, P.T. Adamczyk and Marcin Przybyłowicz, and the deep and complex story that Phantom Liberty conveys was an incredibly special one. We tried to create a music video that would naturally expand the visual language of the expansion’s art into a new medium in the most organic way, making it a perfect encapsulation of the whole adventure — but also a super intriguing musical and visual experience in its own right. I’m super proud of how it came together, and I hope gamers and music enthusiasts alike really enjoy the end result.”
After months of collaboration and production that took place from April to September, the music video premiered on September 29, 2023.
Watch Phantom Liberty here:
Source: Juice
Debbie Diamond Sarto is news editor at Animation World Network.
