Brief Explanation

In April 2012, V Energy assembled a team of technology developers, audio engineers, visual artists, musicians and a leading music producer, and gave them a challenge – to create a piece of music using only the body’s movement. We called this the V Motion Project. The team hacked Microsoft's Kinect motion tracking software combining it with audio production software Abelton, to create an instrument that transforms the body's movement into sounds. That data was also used to create bespoke live visuals that were projected on a huge wall to create an amazing spectacle and demonstrate that the technology was real and the music was actually being created live. On June 16th, The V Motion Project showcased its new technology in a live performance in downtown Auckland. The event was witnessed by hundreds of spectators and covered live on national TV and radio. The content captured was used to create TVC's and a full-length music video that we released on YouTube, Vimeo and New Zealand Music Television. And the music single was released on iTunes and played on national radio stations.

Creative Execution

The music track is an original score written to appeal to our youth energy consumer. It needed to be commercially friendly, current, and resonate with a fickle target market influenced heavily music that has popularity and scale. But what’s most amazing about this project is that the track had to be written in a way that it could be broken down into individual stems and recreated through the technology and the motion artist’s movements. No easy task. Heading the team who wrote and compiled the track was leading NZ music producer Joel Little. He teamed up with musicians, audio engineers, programmers and our motion artist. The track is licensed to V Energy for two years. While the music track was the final output of The V Motion Project, it was the single most important aspect that lead to the project’s success. If it were loved, the project would do well. If it were unloved, the amazing technology story behind the project would be lost. Thankfully it was loved and the music track (Can’t Help Myself) reached #1 in the New Zealand Singles Charts, and #1 on the iTunes Electronic Music charts.