“Bitter Sweet Symphony” | A video tribute to The Verve

Produced by Donna Freeberg and Scott Taylor for ShoutOut3D with music & lyrics by – The Verve, songwriter, Richard Paul Ashcroft. Video Animation and editing by Scott Taylor (without AI), art direction by Donna Freeberg. For best viewing resolution, please set your YouTube settings to HD 1080p.

BITTER SWEET SYMPHONY
Music by: The Verve

"Bitter Sweet Symphony" is a song by the English rock band the Verve, released on 16 June 1997 by Hut Recordings and Virgin Records as the lead single from their third album, Urban Hymns. It was included in two editions of Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Songs of All Time".

Richard Paul Ashcroft (born 11 September 1971) is an English musician, singer, and songwriter. He formed the alternative rock band the Verve in 1990 and served as the sole songwriter, lead singer and rhythm guitarist throughout the band's lifetime.

This Tribute Video created by Scott Taylor & Donna Freeberg for ShoutOut3D

Technical: This video was created on two Mac mini computers (M1 & M4). All animation and video editing was created using Blender software and animated entirely in key frames, by a human being, NOT Artificial Intelligence (AI).

The PROJECT folder size is 372.93 GB and contains 161,378 asset files used to create the video. The production began on Monday, October 27, 2025 at 11:43 PM with an idea to create classic Greek/Roman columns.

THE BACKGROUND

The COLUMNS were built from Oct 27-Oct 29. The columns were modeled and duplicated into a long row using an array modifier, with a high-gloss promenade and set against the magic light of a sunset HDRI. The rotating Earth was modeled and created on Oct 29-30 using NASA imagery and added to the columnar set for the BACKGROUND of the video.

CAMERA key frame movement and animation for the BACKGROUND and initial LIGHTING of the video occurred between Oct 30 and Nov 1 in Blender.

-MULTITUDES
The sheer numbers of walking people was accomplished using the Mac M4 Mini on Nov 2-3 by creating (7) meta-human characters animated to walk in place, and adding an array modifier to duplicate the original (7) characters so that each row had 180 characters (or a total of 1260 human shapes) then they were all tied together using an “empty” and further animated to proceed through the COLUMNS at an exaggerated high speed.

The MUSIC
It wasn’t until the MULTITUDES were added that the inspiration for the SONG CHOICE occurred. As I was watching the COLUMN BACKGROUND now combined with the MULTITUDES, I could sense we were going to need something that supported an EPIC feel (or rather that the video should support an EPIC song). The Verve’s “Bitter Sweet Symphony” was the obvious choice.

VIOLINS
The Violin character wasn’t created (oddly enough) until November 19. Suggested by Artistic Director Donna Freeberg, extensive time and key frames to animate and synchronize the violinist to the music took several days. The single violinist was then duplicated into (3) players, and then “mirrored” to create (6) violinists. They were then rendered with transparent backgrounds and ready to be used as the “Violins” video track, to be stacked on top of the BACKGROUND and the MULTITUDES video tracks.

FEATURED CHARACTERS (created between Nov 19 and Nov 24)
-BALLET DANCER
-BEWILDERED looking right to left
-PRAYER
-WALKER

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The VIDEO EDITING PROCESS
Using Blender software, as a video editor, the following VIDEO TRACKS (.png image sequence) were “stacked” in order from bottom to top in the
VIDEO SEQUENCER:

1) BACKGROUND
2) COLUMNS
3) Spinning EARTH
4) MULTITUDES of high-speed walking people
5) VIOLINS
6) BALLET DANCER
7) BEWILDERED looking right to left
8) PRAYER
9) WALKER

These tracks were then edited using alpha-transparency to cross-fade between the various tracks to reinforce and support the action of the music as it rolls along. The lighting was a combination of natural world light from the HDRI sunset, and various keyed “point” lights parented to the animated characters. The edited tracks were then combined into a MASTER image sequence of .png files and then brought back in to the Blender editor for final lighting mastering using exposure and gamma correction. Multiple iterations (13 Master files and dozens of revisions) of the video began to take shape from Nov 20 through Nov 26th.

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Acknowledgements

I would personally like to thank my partner, Donna Freeberg for the endless hours of reviewing the many iterations of this video during the production process, and for her one-of-a-kind personal takes, suggestions and artistic direction, without which this video would not have been produced. Donna - THANK YOU, you are indeed, one-in-a-million!

We would like to thank Lucy Taylor, and Tim & Laura Dalin for their time in reviewing this video at various stages of production and giving their valuable input and reviews and supportive enthusiasm for the work. Sending love to you guys!