A$AP Rocky Weaves Through Chaotic Crowds in 'HELICOPTER' Video
Director Dan Streit and music artist A$AP Rocky join forces for ‘HELICOPTER’. The video is directed by Dan, co-written by Dan and Rocky, and produced by Somesuch with Grin Machine. Unveiled ahead of Rocky’s upcoming album Don’t Be Dumb, due to release on Jan 16th, ‘HELICOPTER’ is the video accompanying Rocky’s second single on the album: ‘Helicopter$’. The promo marks the duo’s fourth collaboration together.
Reminiscent of early 2000s PlayStation game aesthetics, ‘HELICOPTER’ conjures a dystopian diorama of rooftop riots, cop-car collisions, robot wars, and swarming SWAT teams as Rocky weaves his way through chaotic crowds, hanging and performing from his helicopter.
In an industry doubling down on the use of AI, the promo is a bold reminder of the power and nuance of human-led animation. In other words, no AI was used to create ‘HELICOPTER’. Dan pushed creative and technical boundaries with the overall production approach, which utilised a new type of innovative workflow – 4D volumetric scans and Gaussian splats of real talent performances, then brought in computer-generated environments.
In the build-up to the launch of ‘HELICOPTER’ and Don’t Be Dumb (DBD), Dan and Rocky have been subtly teasing and building in the DBD lore into several of their branded projects throughout the year, including Moncler’s ‘Don’t Be Dumb. Be Genius.’ campaign, and CashApp’s ‘Get it A$AP’ partnership.
In Moncler, the Easter Eggs include Rocky’s iconic helicopter motif, but also the introduction of the computer-generated environments later to come in the music video. You’ll also notice the AWGE constituents buy the helicopter from the Moncler models in the video, so they also make a cameo. In ‘Get it A$AP’, Dan’s spot to promote Rocky’s Cash App partnership, the helicopter appears in toy form, while newscaster Rob Shannon, who will also later make an appearance in ‘HELIPCOPTER’ video, tries to get a straight answer from Rocky regarding the delayed release of the album.
