Google

THROUGH THE DARK

Interactive Film

Talbot says the poignant animation managed to reduce a room full of hardened, cynical creatives almost to tears. “It wasn’t just something new, but something beautifully executed,” she says. “It’s a music video that does something very different to what you’d expect a music video to do. It gave me goosebumps.”

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Through the Dark is a 4 ½ minute 3D-animated interactive film for Google that’s viewed in a web browser and rendered in real-time, allowing the user to experience the story by changing the camera’s perspective and moving between two worlds.

The project was a collaboration with Hilltop Hoods and features their song of the same name. The track was written by one of the band members, Daniel Smith, when his eight-year-old son Liam was diagnosed with leukaemia and spent six-months in hospital. Based on this experience, the film tells a poignant story of a boy and his father struggling with their fears of losing one another.