Childish Gambino’s animated “Feels Like Summer” video grabbed attention in early September for its lighthearted take on many staple figures in hip-hop. The video racked up over 55 million YouTube views, a major win for the Georgia native. Gambino’s “Feels Like Summer” video is co-directed by Ivan Dixon and character designed by Justin Richburg, who recently caught up with Genius to explain the inspiration behind their work.
“The whole video is a celebration of African-American culture,” Dixon explains. “It’s all these really well-known people doing quite normal family activities. There was a list of what Donald wanted to see and in order. It was up to us to figure it out how to connect all those things.”
The two directors revealed that Gambino wanted the characters to appear somewhat neutral, and pushed back against intense caricatures. Still, they were allowed creative freedom in their designs. “Very early on, I decided I wanted this one-point perspective where you got your vanishing point here, and everything originates from there. You’re not revealing what’s ahead of him to the audience. So it’s revealed as Donald sees it,” Dixon says.
“I got the description of how people should look, but he also gave me free range,” Richburg says. “But he know the type of artist that I am, I like to do things to get under people’s skin. I was asking him, "Am I allowed to go all the way?” He was like, “Nah don’t go too far.” So I kept it pretty tame."
Overall, they view the work as creatively rewarding. “The way I see animation is it’s kind of the purest form of film making because you’re starting with nothing,” Dixon notes. “You can’t just point a camera at a building and absorb that architectural information that somebody else has labored over. You have to make decisions and draw it.”
Check out even more exciting, behind-the-scenes breakdowns in the video above and catch up on all the lyrics to Childish Gambino’s “Feels Like Summer” on Genius now.
