Music videos can be one of the most free-spirited forms of animation, where visual imagination is encouraged to run wild. Although artistic and technical experimentation are not the primary goals of music videos, they are often an ideal opportunity for the animator to stretch his or her limits. Here are six views of music videos from both the designers and animators who create them and the clients who request them.

Cliff Galbraith (top left). Fluorescent Hill’s (top right) Mark Lomond, Johanne Ste-Marie and Darren Pasemko. MK12 logo (middle left). Moneyshots (middle right image) visual effects supervisor Chris Eckardt on left and creative director Elad Offer on right. Co-founder of Girdwood Partners, LLC Howard Soriano (bottom left). Zoic Studios’ Andrew Orloff (bottom right), founder and head of CG projects. Galbraith photo courtesy of Cliff Galbraith. Photo of Eckardt and Offer courtesy of Moneyshots. Soriano photo courtesy of Girdwood Partners, LLC. Orloff photo courtesy of Zoic Studios.

Cliff Galbraith is an independent producer/director in North Hollywood, California. He also produces the comic book Rat Bastard under his Crucial Comics, Inc. label.

Fluorescent Hill is a collective formed by Mark Lomond, Darren Pasemko and Johanne Ste-Marie, in Montreal, Canada. Lomond responded for the three entrepreneurs straight out of school.

MK12 is a design collective consisting of 10 to 15 creative artists based in Kansas City, Missouri. Matt Fraction answered us as MK12’s spokesperson.

Moneyshots is a full-service visual effects design facility in Santa Monica, California. It was founded in 2001 by Chris Eckardt (visual effects supervisor) and Elad Offer (creative director) as a music video post house, and has worked on videos for artists including Celine Dion, Janet Jackson and Britney Spears. Both Eckardt and Offer contributed to this response.

WeeBeeTunes Travel Adventures is a series of award-winning educational animated music videos intended to “introduce kids to countries and cultures around the world.” Howard Soriano, co-founder of the Chicago-based Girdwood Partners, LLC which produces and markets them, and the executive producer of the series, tells us what his company wants when it commissions these music videos.

Zoic Studios was founded in Los Angeles in September 2002 to provide visual effects and CG animation for commercials, music videos, feature films and TV. Andrew Orloff, one of Zoic’s founders and head of CG projects, has given us his viewpoints.