The Mill worked with JAY-Z, Roc Nation and Director Mark Romanek via Anonymous Content to create the animated music video for ‘The Story of O.J.’, a track off JAY-Z’s hotly anticipated visual album, 4:44.
JAY-Z’s concept for the piece draws on the stylistic conventions of theatrical cartoons from the 1930s-40s and highlights the many prejudices and stereotypes of the era. Our artists realized JAY-Z’s vision using a combination of hand-drawn cel animation, computer graphics and painted backgrounds, collaborating with Titmouse to animate the original characters.
Design & Animation: The Mill
Managing Director: Rani Melendez
Executive Creative Director: Phil Crowe
Executive Producer: Elizabeth Newman
Producer: Daniel Midgley
Production Coordinator: Lauren Wesley
Creative Director: Lisha Tan
Lead Character Design: Rustam Hasanov
Art Director: Tim Devlin
Title Design: Ilya Abulkhanov
Design: Nathan McKenna, George Fuentes, Ren Chen, Lisha Tan, Amy Graham
Animation: Justin Demetrician, Woosung Kang, Kyle Moore, Mikhail Pakhomov, Tim Devlin, Evan Parsons
3D Modeling: Sasha Vinogradova
2D Lead Artist: John Shirley
Storyboard Artist: Vince Wei