From Leo AI: The music video for Wide Open by The Chemical Brothers featuring Beck was released on January 25, 2016. Directed by the duo Dom & Nic (Dominic Hawley and Nick Goffey), the video serves as the visual companion to the lead single from the album Born In The Echoes. It has received critical acclaim for its innovative visual effects and choreography, winning Best Dance Video and Best VFX at the 2016 UK Music Video Awards.
The video features a continuous, unbroken shot of dancer Sonoya Mizuno performing in an empty warehouse in Bethnal Green, London. As she dances to the track's haunting vocals, her body undergoes a surreal, limb-by-limb transformation. Starting as flesh and blood, she gradually becomes a transparent, lattice-like skeletal structure,
resembling a 3D-printed object or a hollow framework. This visual metaphor aligns with the song's themes of emotional distance and fading away. The effect has been described as having an Ex Machina vibe, merging the organic with the mechanical.
The complex visual effects were created by The Mill, a VFX and creative content studio. To achieve the seamless transformation:
CG Modeling: The team built a full CG model of Sonoya Mizuno comprising 107 individual "anatomic rigs."
Technology: The production utilized LiDAR scanning to map the warehouse and 3D mapping cameras to track movement.
Bespoke software allowed the dancers' movements to be matched perfectly with the animated limbs, replacing the background.
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