LIFE IS SCARY
BONNIE PRINCE BILLY
“An elegy left behind for a future that might not remember us.” – Americana UK
LIFE IS SCARY is a music video collaboration with filmmaker Braden King and musician Will Oldham, developed between location footage shot in Nevada and studio work at NYU’s Brooklyn Navy Yard immersive LED volume, using Unreal Engine and Gaussian splat environments.
I developed a series of spline-based symbols and animations, composited into landscapes as light-based marks. Built using X-Particles, Unreal, and extended through Gaussian splat processes, these forms move between signal and atmosphere—appearing as fleeting, coded presences within the extruded terrain.
The symbolic language draws loosely from hobo code and other vernacular symbol systems, where meaning is carried through abstraction, repetition, and placement. The work unfolds through layered compositing and environmental integration, where these marks register as both interruption and residue—something like signals moving through a landscape after the fact, apocalyptic and hopeful at once, as if witnessing a world that has already passed.
Production Credits
Director:
Braden King
Co-Conspirator:
Hillary Fyfe Spera
Cinematography:
Eric Lin
Blake Johnson
Light Drawing Majick + Visual Compositing:
Deborah Johnson
Virtual Production:
NYU Tandon @ The Yard
Editor:
Laura Israel
Nuke Compositor:
Thompson Conradi
Performance Video:
Will Oldham
Sally Timms
Color:
Company 3
Tim Mascik
Produced by:
Truckstop
Life Is Scary in Process
Building a Symbolic Language
I developed a collection of spline-based symbols inspired by vernacular mark-making systems, hobo code, signal diagrams, and hand-drawn notation. These forms function as recurring visual motifs throughout the video.
Signals in the Landscape
The drawings were translated into volumetric and environmental systems using Gaussian splat workflows, Unreal Engine, and procedural animation. Rather than existing as objects, the symbols behave like traces, signals, and atmospheric interruptions within the landscape.
Environmental Compositing
Location footage, virtual environments, and animated systems were layered together through a hybrid compositing workflow. The resulting imagery moves between documentary space and speculative fiction, allowing symbolic structures to emerge from within the terrain itself.
