Video Breakdown: B.o.B.‘s “Nothin on You”

B.o.B. is currently one of the hottest artists out of Atlanta with his hit “Nothin’ On You”. With a more top 40 sensibility and staying away from the southern gangster trap music style that has been prevalent these last few years, he’s a breath of fresh air in a crowded Southern hip-hop scene. With the success of his sentimental chart topper he’s come out with an equally unconventional stop motion/collage video directed by up and coming director Ethan Lader.



How do you make a video for a hot new rapper out of Atlanta, a city where Gucci Man, TI, and Soulja are the reigning kings of the music scene? You go for something quirky, off the wall and fun that still showcases the talents of the artist, B.o.B. Ethan Lader was able to do this, using a time consuming though, relatively cost effective technique to shoot the video for “Nothin’ On You”. While Lader has definitely not pioneered the technique used in the video, he has certainly refined it and is quickly becoming more adept at it after his first use of it in the video for Perez Hilton’s artist “Slimy” on the track "Womanizer". In this particular video a stop motion powered BOB encounters the temptation of the various women throughout his life and performs in front of several paper mached/photographed version of Atlanta landmarks, only to finally come back to his one and only and profess his love for her (happily ever after). The video is cute and endearing while being a bit quirky (due to the stop motion/printing technique), a perfect fit for B.o.B. and the song.

On his Vimeo page Lader goes into some detail about how he achieved the effect, but the gist of it is that he shot video of B.o.B/, Bruno Mars and the models in front of a white cyclorama background (that the all white backdrop they shoot photoshoots and some videos on) and then printed out over 3000 frames of said video on paper. The same procedure was used to create the background elements (aka plates) used in the video. They then hand crumpled each sheet and tore out outlines of each character. These paper tear outs of each frame photographed them into a stop motion animation form and created what you see above. It’s a lot of work for 3 minutes and 37 seconds but fairly low budget and a cool effect. Check out more of Ethan Lader’s work at ethandirector.com.