The racial stereotypes perpetuated by animated shorts from Disney, Fleischer, Warner Bros. and others in the 1930s-40s take on a somber new power in this JAY-Z video designed and animated by The Mill with Titmouse handling character animation.
Co-directed by Mark Romanek and JAY-Z, the film uses a combination of hand-drawn cel animation, computer graphics and painted backgrounds.
Client: Roc Nation
Directors: Mark Romanek, JAY-Z
Design & Animation: The Mill
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, Jason Kang, Kyle Moore, Mikhail Pakhomov, Tim Devlin, Evan Parsons
3D Modeling: Sasha Vinogradova
2D Lead Artist: John Shirley
Storyboard Artist: Vince Wei
Character Animation: Titmouse
Producer: Ben Kalina
Animation Director: Mike Roush
Production Manager: Brendan O’Connor
Animation: Matt Augustin, Roberto Rosi, Richard Mather, Thom McDonnell, Daran Carlin-Weber, Jonathan Peartree, George Chung, Adam Temple, Brian Pak, Mike McCraw, Dante Buford, Marius Alecse, Connie Chan
Cleanup: Jan Naylor, Yi Song, Carl Aspuria, Anthony Parrotta