Sony Corporation has revealed a new music and gaming crossover project: a music video for July, by Sony Music artist Noah Cyrus, created entirely on PlayStation 4’s Dreams.
The project is the third in the Sony Collaboration Series, a brand campaign announced in December 2019 that is part of an ongoing Sony strategy to highlight the ties between SME artists and other Sony assets.
Dreams is a game/gaming engine hybrid, which can be used by PS4 players to play games, create their own games, or music, or music videos.
It was developed by UK-based games developer Media Molecule (the company also behind Little Big Planet) and released in February 2020.
To give you an idea of the level of visuals that can be made using Dreams, following the release of a demo for Epic Games‘ Unreal Engine 5 back in May, for which the company stated that one of its goals “is to achieve photorealism on par with movie CG and real life”, a Dreams user managed to recreate that demo using the PS4 game.
Media Molecule Co-Founder and Art Director Kareem Ettouney, as well as Dreams community artist Martin Nebelong, worked with Noah Cyrus to create the video for July.
For some time now, Sony’s music division has floated the vision of “One Sony” – the idea that it is uniquely connected to Sony Corp’s other divisions such as Sony Pictures (movies and TV) and Sony Game & Network Services (including PlayStation), and can cross-collaborate on projects.
This year has seen Sony play a prominent role in the convergence of the music and video games businesses in particular.
In April, Travis Scott (signed to Sony Music label Epic Records) attracted 27.7 million viewers to his ‘Astronomical’ Fortnite event.
And then, in May, MBW spotted a number of job ads advertised by Sony Music for a team based in Los Angeles “dedicated to reimagining music through immersive media” using Fortnite maker Epic Games’ unreal Engine.
Earlier this month came the news that Sony Corporation had acquired a $250 million minority stake in Epic.
Furthermore, just a couple of weeks ago, a fresh pair of job descriptions spotted by MBW stated that Sony Music is planning to “bring to life a new era of immersive entertainment centered around music for an unannounced project”.
“This is an amazing and unique example of Sony’s purpose statement: to ‘Fill the world with emotion, through the power of creativity and technology.”
Midori Tomita, Sony Corporation
Midori Tomita, VP in charge of Brand Communication, Sony Corporation, said: “We are excited to introduce a special collaboration between SME artist Noah Cyrus, PlayStation, and Dreams.
“This is an amazing and unique example of Sony’s purpose statement: to ‘Fill the world with emotion, through the power of creativity and technology.”
“It was a true joy to work on and a great example of what we can make in Dreams.”
Kareem Ettouney, Media Molecule
Media Molecule’s Kareem Ettouney, added: “I loved working on Noah Cyrus’s July song, which is so timeless, beautiful and went under my skin. I loved that there is no conclusion in the end of the song – I love that in art.
“The process of developing the video was magical and the synchronicity between our and Noah’s vision was incredibly harmonious.
“It was a true joy to work on and a great example of what we can make in Dreams.”
“Anything that pushes the boundaries of creativity and technology while exploring new ways for people to connect to music is exciting to me.”
Noah Cyrus
Noah Cyrus said: “Anything that pushes the boundaries of creativity and technology while exploring new ways for people to connect to music is exciting to me.
“This whole experience has been so inspiring, particularly at the beginning of the lockdown.”
Music Business Worldwide
