When Mauricio Morales, the jazz maestro from Mexico City, pinged me to collaborate, it was an opportunity I couldn't pass up. Mauricio had been a musical prodigy since 14 and was rubbing elbows and studying with jazz legends by the time he got a full scholarship to Berklee. Add in the artistic direction of Paula Andrea Acevedo Ospina from Colombia, and you've got a dream team: A Mexican virtuoso, a Colombian visionary, and me, a Chicano producer with a knack for blending worlds. It was a global mishmash of high concept creativity.

Mauricio's track "Grey" was intricate to say the least. Co-produced with Mark Pelli (a name associated with co-writing chart-toppers for Chris Brown, Shakira, and more), the jazz fusion pop single boasted a rich tapestry of sounds that demanded a visual counterpart not just complementary, but transformative. And that's the challenge I was facing.

Paula handed off a color pallete and sequence to help tell the story visually. Then switching between Illustrator, Photoshop, After Effects, Stable Diffusion, Google Colab, and Python, I embarked on crafting a base video in After Effects, integrating stock footage and vector elements I created by hand.

Utilizing JavaScript, I delved into the 3D math within After Effect's expression language. I architected a virtual camera that seamlessly moved backward in tandem with the music's rhythm. With the custom expressions I created, every visual element was meticulously placed in a 3D space, ensuring they appeared before the camera, perfectly timed with the musical meter's subdivisions.

Additionally, Mauricio's bass line influenced the flow of colors, the percussion molded transitions, and the melody governed the storyline. Every frame became a dialogue between the music and visuals, each element influencing and responding to the other.