George Wheeler inverts oil-pastel sketches for Meanwhile in Rio music video
Music: London animator George Wheeler sketched a Brazilian love story and inverted his drawings to create the colourful animation that accompanies this track called Meanwhile in Rio.
![George-Wheeler_Jacob-Perlmutter_Meanwhile-in-Rio_music-video_dezeen_sq](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/05/George-Wheeler_Jacob-Perlmutter_Meanwhile-in-Rio_music-video_dezeen_sq.gif)
For the title track from filmmaker and songwriter Jacob Perlmutter's debut album, Wheeler's oil-pastel animation style was recommended by a mutual friend as a good fit for the acoustic song.
![Meanwhile in Rio by Jacob Perlmutter music video directed by George Wheeler](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/05/George-Wheeler_Jacob-Perlmutter_Meanwhile-in-Rio_music-video_dezeen_468_9.jpg)
"The initial story I was given was about a man in Rio, falling in love with a woman he's never met, only seen," said Wheeler. "I thought it would be funny to change the male protagonist into a boy to make fun of the childish nature of falling in love with an image."
![Meanwhile in Rio by Jacob Perlmutter music video directed by George Wheeler](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/05/George-Wheeler_Jacob-Perlmutter_Meanwhile-in-Rio_music-video_dezeen_468_6.jpg)
Vintage postcards from Rio de Janeiro provided a starting point for the scenes in the images in the music video.
"Jacob recorded the entire album in Rio and it was important to him that the video had a nostalgic fondness for that mythical Rio that only really existed in postcards," Wheeler said.
![Meanwhile in Rio by Jacob Perlmutter music video directed by George Wheeler](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/05/George-Wheeler_Jacob-Perlmutter_Meanwhile-in-Rio_music-video_dezeen_468_5.jpg)
To create the colourful effects on a black background, Wheeler sketched with the opposite colours he wanted onto white paper and then digitally inverted the images.
![Meanwhile in Rio by Jacob Perlmutter music video directed by George Wheeler](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/05/George-Wheeler_Jacob-Perlmutter_Meanwhile-in-Rio_music-video_dezeen_468_0.jpg)
"I worked with inverted colours for so long that I developed a very good sense for guessing exactly what any colour would look like when reversed," said Wheeler.
![Meanwhile in Rio by Jacob Perlmutter music video directed by George Wheeler](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/05/George-Wheeler_Jacob-Perlmutter_Meanwhile-in-Rio_music-video_dezeen_468_2.jpg)
All of the drawings were then photographed using animation tool Dragonframe, then composited in Adobe After Effects, where subtle camera movements were added.
![Meanwhile in Rio by Jacob Perlmutter music video directed by George Wheeler](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/05/George-Wheeler_Jacob-Perlmutter_Meanwhile-in-Rio_music-video_dezeen_468_3.jpg)
Wheeler admitted that not all of the images were sketched freehand. Some were created on the computer and then traced to keep the style consistent.
![Meanwhile in Rio by Jacob Perlmutter music video directed by George Wheeler](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/05/George-Wheeler_Jacob-Perlmutter_Meanwhile-in-Rio_music-video_dezeen_468_4.jpg)
"Oil pastel is quite hard to work with so for some of the animation I would make a digital version on my computer using a programme called TV Paint, I'd then turn my monitor upside down and trace my digital animation with oil pastels," he said.
![Meanwhile in Rio by Jacob Perlmutter music video directed by George Wheeler](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/05/George-Wheeler_Jacob-Perlmutter_Meanwhile-in-Rio_music-video_dezeen_468_8.jpg)
Wheeler worked on the project between other commitments for eight months from start to finish.