We love Christmas. The food. Seeing family. The presents! It’s easy to get swept up in the excitement of our modern traditions. But as much as Christmas is about getting the newest gaming console, it is just as important to remember what the day really means.

This is why we were so excited when we were asked to help create a music video for The Cross.

Making animations for a Christmas song? Sounds like the perfect Christmas gift to us!

The most important thing for us to do in creating this music video was to reflect the story told in the music through our animations.

Here, the key message of The Cross was to remember the true significance of Christmas as we get swept up in modern traditions. So, we decided to intercut a modern Christmas experience with the significance of Christmas through Jesus’ story.

As a music video, it was also integral that we tied our animations strongly to the foundations of the song – the lyrics. To do this effectively, we needed to establish the connection right from the first line.

“Don’t forget about that cross as you rush to the Christmas tree.”

At this opening line, we presented audiences with a woman gazing at a Christmas tree filled with dozens of tiny crosses. As one of the crosses begins to sparkle and glow, audiences are transported into the Christmas story. The story of Jesus.

Another vital place we needed the animations to beautifully reflect the lyrics was in the chorus.

“From the manger to the cross, every step of the way.”

Every step of the way.

Sounds like a lot of walking…

So, that’s exactly what we animated. We made a montage of Jesus’ footsteps through his life, beginning with his steps as a baby and becoming older with every couple of steps.

As well as reflecting lyrics and message of The Cross, we also needed to ensure we matched its slow tempo and reflective mood.

The tempo was easy. We simply made the characters more controlled in their movements so they weren’t head-banging to Silent Night, so to speak.

In mimicking the mood, we looked to our use of colours. In using darker colours in the modern scenes to replicate the more sombre mood and lighter colours in the scenes of Jesus’ story to elicit hope, we were able to effectively convey the reflective yet hopeful tone of the song.

All in all we were very happy with the final video and so was The Cross!

And if you’re wondering what to get us for Christmas, we like snacks and cool animation projects.