Ethereal

The music video for AnimHeru’s Ethereal is simple; an alien DJ grooves to a bouncy electronic track. Throw in some fancy footwork and extraterrestrial swagger and the result is a fun video with a likeable visual hook. However, the video unfortunately suffers from an abundance of distracting effects, and it fails to develop the idea over the course of its five minute runtime.

Ethereal’s alien DJ looks appropriately alien, with a long curved neck and slender limbs. It’s a compelling design that summons to mind Apple’s tech, specifically an Airpod. It’s pretty impressive how much personality the alien has considering its lack of any facial features, and AnimHeru has done well to inject so much personality into a character with so little detail. The resemblance to an Apple product may be more than a coincidence, as the video also seems reminiscent of Apple’s iconic iPod adverts that ran through the 2000s, where silhouettes danced in front of bright, colourful backdrops. It’s a fun, nostalgic point of reference (whether intentional or not) that gives Ethereal a nostalgic Y2K personality.

Sadly, Ethereal’s charm ends here. The effects layered over the top of the animation are distracting, succeeding only in obscuring the alien’s dance moves. The shifting colour effect is especially egregious, and over the course of five minutes, it may end up inducing headaches in viewers. A similar effect could have been achieved by leaning into the aesthetic of the 2000s iPod adverts as mentioned previously, using bold block colours as the background and leaving the alien in silhouette. Unfortunately, as is, Ethereal makes for a nauseous viewing experience. This is further exacerbated by the lack of any development or a narrative in the video; everything that viewers see in the first ten seconds will be repeated in the next five minutes. AnimHeru could have looked to the music video for Eiffel 65’s Blue (Da Be Dee) for inspiration in how a narrative is built around cgi aliens, or perhaps to Daft Punk’s Around the World for how the video builds around characters dancing without narrative. In the latter music video, the background is entirely black so that the characters in costume pop out against the backdrop. Ethereal meanwhile is set in a vast void where the colours change rapidly. Everything blends together, and it’s not visually appealing in the slightest. It’s understandable that the scope of Ethereal is small, considering how effort intensive animation is, especially with a low budget and without a team of animators. Still, the video fails to convey an ethereal tone, and instead threads the fine needle of being both boring and overstimulating.

Everyone loves an alien, and yet it’s hard not to wish for more from Ethereal. AnimHeru clearly put thought into the choreography of the video, and the editing shows some real intentionality. It’s a charming video, but unfortunately it’s also in need of refinement.