John Gardner recently directed an experimental music video for the indie rock band Lunavox. What's Locked Behind That Door? integrates traditional animation techniques with AI-generated imagery to create a visually-striking narrative that explores themes of human emotion and institutional corruption.
According to Gardner, who's based in Raleigh, NC, and has worked as a graphic artist for more than 20 years, the Lunavox project pushed him to explore new techniques. What's Locked Behind That Door? screened at numerous festivals and earned Gardner a 2025 Global Music Award.
The video makes use of footage and sound from the 1962 cult classic The Brain That Wouldn't Die. The fusion of sound and spoken word inspired Gardner to use doors as powerful metaphors that represent hope, despair and corruption. He used Flux, an advanced AI tool, to generate high-quality door visuals from text prompts. The AI-generated doors, with their surreal textures and evocative landscapes, helped capture the song's haunting mood and became the visual cornerstone of the project.
"Using Adobe After Effects and Blender, I integrated these AI visuals with archival footage," he shares. Match-moving helped align layers with live-action, and rotoscoping techniques were used to blend elements seamlessly. In addition, he applied motion tracking to ensure precise integration of AI imagery with the footage.
"I also created a dynamic interplay between black & white and color sequences," he adds. "For instance, monochrome doors evoke raw emotion, while vibrant hues highlight moments of revelation. This hybrid workflow allowed me to harness AI's creative potential while grounding the video in traditional animation and editing techniques, ensuring artistic control and narrative coherence."
What's Locked Behind That Door? won Best Music Video at the Carolina Film Festival, and was finalist at Night Flight Music Video Film Festival. The video also received an Honorable Mention at Video Art and Experimental Film Festival.