Behind the Scenes

HATE CREATES HATE.

Synopsis

In a world where hate, negativity, and prejudice has only grown increasingly more accessible thanks to the advancement of technology and social media, it becomes easy to feed into, impacting your own mood and even those around you. It’s managed to normalize certain forms of judgement and lead many to believe everyone wants to hear their brash criticisms on anything and everything. This sensation paired with the fast rise in AI and its popularity, can lead a society to suppress and even lose the things that make humanity special: our creativity, unique and personal experiences, and the emotions we feel. 

My favorite musical artist, YoungBoy Never Broke Again, is someone that could be described as “easy to hate on”. With a criminal past, a discography full of loud, violent music, and an unapologetic demeanor it becomes hard to shake the critical narratives or see how so many can resonate and become fans of the so-called “thug”.

While this project is not intended to worship or glorify any of the violent and harmful actions that many be depicted, it is not apologetic about sharing the experiences of real people, how those experiences have shaped their stories, how those stories have resonated with the feelings of its audience, or how those feelings don’t make those who experience them any lesser of a human.

Artists

Lead Design

Aubrianna Pahl

Toolbox

Final Stills

Phase One

Tracklist and Script Creating

The massive and ever expanding discography of YoungBoy combined with my love for his music created a problem from the start; narrowing down which songs best told the story I wanted to portray without dragging on or losing sight of the message in favor of including my favorites. To begin, I listened to his entire discography on loop over the course of a week or two, taking note of any song that I either felt a connection with, or that spoke of the experiences that have shaped who he his. From there I went to the artists community to ask which songs resonated most with some of his other fans, then highlighting mentioned songs on my list before going back, taking a closer look, and narrowing them down to create a succinct and impactful story.

Phase Two

Set Building

My goal while creating digital sketches for the various title and information cards was to capture a darker and more serious tone throughout the scenes. I continued to play with contrast to convey the message of the series along with incorporating elements such as graffiti and imagery to bring a sense of context to the show's situation and location.

Phase Three

Visual Production

After experimentation, I decided to pursue a singular HUD inside of one that’s split across the screen. This way the viewer only has to move their eyes along a singular linear plane in order to receive all the information they need outside of the actual gameplay. The hierarchy of the HUD, set from the middle to the outer edges, communicates information most relevant to each team and the state of the game and most relevant to the overall game out to the current moment and later game events. Additionally, the HUD can be collapsed to take up just 5% of the total height of the screen or cropped perfectly for vertical form content like TikTok, while still showing the most important and relevant information. 

Phase Four

3D Integration

After experimentation, I decided to pursue a singular HUD inside of one that’s split across the screen. This way the viewer only has to move their eyes along a singular linear plane in order to receive all the information they need outside of the actual gameplay. The hierarchy of the HUD, set from the middle to the outer edges, communicates information most relevant to each team and the state of the game and most relevant to the overall game out to the current moment and later game events. Additionally, the HUD can be collapsed to take up just 5% of the total height of the screen or cropped perfectly for vertical form content like TikTok, while still showing the most important and relevant information.