Katy Perrys latest music video for the hip hop-infused #1 hit single Dark Horse is a bold, Egyptian-themed cinematic epic created by storytelling studio Mirada. Starring Katy-P tra, the video is a larger-than-life tale that follows the legendary Queen of Memphis as a parade of would-be suitors vie for her heart.
It can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KSOMA3QBU0
Beyond the traditional size and scope of a music video, Dark Horse rivals the grand-scale of a major motion picture with reimagined Egyptian motifs that build a mythical landscape defined by stylistic juxtapositions that mirror the track's fluid mix of sexy vocals. While much of the action was captured in-camera on stage during a rapid two-day shoot, Mirada pushed the video's aesthetic to new heights with intricate 3D character assets, FX particle and fluid simulations and visual enhancements to key moments within big live-action sets and sprawling digital matte-paintings.
Working closely with Katy Perry, Director Mathew Cullen and Capitol Music Group SVP of Creative & Video Danny Lockwood, the Mirada team - led by Creative Director Izhak Roitman and Visual Effects Supervisor Andrew Ashton - designed, and delivered 127 visual effects shots for the Dark Horse music video. As Roitman explained, The design process started with playful references pulled from great sci-fi movies, combined with the vivid color on old album covers like ELO and Iron Maiden. Then we took those and mashed them up with hip-hop culture for a more hyper-real, more immediate look and feel.
Mirada has delivered on many levels for our recording artists, especially with Katy Perry. I'm consistently impressed by the creativity and commitment their artists display with each new project, said Danny Lockwood, Capitol Music Group SVP of Creative & Video. Mathew Cullen and Mirada took Dark Horse' to another level and helped create a stunning visual world which is distinctly Katy and very entertaining.
From creating giant Egyptian pyramids and architecture, building and animating a talking sphinx, to recreating the exotic Nile River, integrating elaborate matte paintings, and turning men into dust, the team of gifted Mirada artists yielded all the incredible visuals in just eleven days. As Ashton put it, The project was an adventure in the truest sense of the word. We had an excellent team that embraced the story and pulled together to make a very big, unique film in a very short period of time. A perfect storm indeed. Tools used include The Foundry's NUKE, Autodesk Maya, Chaos Group V-Ray , Side Effects Houdini, Pixologic ZBrush, Andersson Technologies SynthEyes , Autodesk Flame Adobe Photoshop , MAXON CINEMA 4D and Adobe After Effects .
The Dark Horse video marks Mirada's third collaboration with the pop superstar, having also created the videos for the jungle-themed Roar and the candy-coated California Gurls. Though a massive undertaking, Mirada built on the creative shorthand developed over previous collaborations with Katy to achieve the project's ambitious-and-epic scale. Dark Horse is the third single off Katy Perry's PRISM album and her ninth US number one hit.
About Mirada
Mirada is a studio designed for storytellers. Founded by filmmaker Guillermo del Toro and partners, the studio is creative sandbox with a robust, nimble technical engine: equal parts design, visual effects, animation, and interactive company, and creative and technology incubator. Mirada opened in 2010 with narrative tradition at its heart and innovation as its engine. http://www.mirada.com
CREDITS
Katy Perry Dark Horse
CLIENT
Client: Capitol Music Group
SVP of Creative & Video/Producer: Danny Lockwood
PRODUCTION
Production Company: Motion Theory
Director: Mathew Cullen
Director of Photography: Shawn Kim
Production Designer: Jeremy Reed
Executive Producer: Javier Jimenez
Head of Production: Ben Leiser
Producer: Dawn Rose
POST PRODUCTION
Post Production Company: Mirada
President: John Fragomeni
Executive Producer: Patrick Nugent
Creative Director: Izhak Roitman
VFX Supervisor: Andrew Ashton
Creative Director (Teaser Video): Vanessa Marzaroli
CG Supervisor: Julian Sarmiento
Post/VFX Producer: Derek Johnson
Post/VFX Coordinator: Kate DeCrosta
Designers: Luke Belderes, Clara Moon, Jing Zheng
Head of Production/Director of HR: Tina Van Delden
Modelers: Ryan Taylor, Tadao Masuyama
Zbrush Modeler/Sculptor: Yeen-Shi Chen
Animator/Rigger: Emanuel Druckmann
3D Generalists: Timothy Hanson, Brandon Lester, Stuart Scanlon, Jeremy Ontiveros
CG Lead: Brandon Thomas
Matte Painter: Gizem Ersavas
AE Artist: Claudia Yi Leon, David Park
Houdini Artists: Todd Dufour, Charles Storniolo, X Ray
Tracking Artists: Graham Herbster, Jared Sanders, Shelby Stong
Roto Artists: Megan Gaffney, Meredith Hook
Nuke Compositors: Dave Abuel, Montana Casey, Sean Cox, Dave Damant, Rachel Dunn, Daniel Raschko, Mark Robben
Flame Artist: Andy Davis, Miles Kinghorn
Sound Design: Michael Vargas
EDITORIAL
Editorial Company: Mirada
Editor: Doug Krise
Editorial Assistant: Kayla Emter
COLOR
Color Company: Incendio
Colorist: Clark Muller
Producer: Christina Caldwell
Data Assistant: Luis Silva
###
Most recent headlines
11/12/2025
Dalet, a leading provider of cloud-native, end-to-end media workflow solutions, ...
06/12/2025
In a live broadcast from the Reagan National Defense Forum, L3Harris Chair and CEO Christopher Kubasik joined Morgan Brennan on CNBCs Closing Bell: Overtime. Ku...
06/12/2025
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. A new survey from Pixitmedia by Datacore revealed a major shift in the Media & Entertainment industry in media archiving, with 85% of resp...
06/12/2025
HACKENSACK, N.J. LiveU has announced that the national public broadcaster Czech Television has completed one of the largest LiveU live production deployments fo...
06/12/2025
NEW YORK The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) presented the Excellence in Production Technology Emmy Award to NASA+ and Dr. Tom Leight...
05/12/2025
2025 Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame: Curt Gowdy Jr. - Master Storyteller, Nati...
05/12/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Veritone's Sean King on the Power of Mining Video, Audio DataThe company's Data Refinery offers users total control and governance over da...
05/12/2025
Platinum White Paper: Inside the Nashville Predators' Unified, Flexible, Sca...
05/12/2025
Netflix Reaches Agreement To Acquire Warner Bros. Following Planned WBD SplitThe deal does not include WBDs sports assets like TNT Sports (US, UK, LatAm), Euros...
05/12/2025
FOX Sports Returns to Indianapolis for Primetime Broadcast of Big Ten Championsh...
05/12/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: Digital Engagement & Monetization Workshop Tackles the ...
05/12/2025
Atlanta United Lights Up New Emory Healthcare Studio With First Live Broadcast f...
05/12/2025
As Messi Takes the Pitch, MLS, Apple, NEP Roll Out Largest MLS Cup Production Ev...
05/12/2025
ESPN Enters College Football's Most Intense Month With Elevated Workflows fo...
05/12/2025
It's about that time! Awards season is in full swing, and the Film Independe...
05/12/2025
Every year, Spotify Wrapped offers a personalized look back at the audio that defined your year. It's a snapshot of your listening habits, designed to tell ...
05/12/2025
In 2025, Spotify's EQUAL, GLOW, and RADAR programs celebrated women, LGBTQIA , and emerging artists who turned moments into milestones. From breaking record...
05/12/2025
In our latest blog, we explain how Wi-Fi 7 rollouts can drive consumer loyalty with value-add services such as consumer cybersecurity. We also explore how this ...
05/12/2025
LOS ANGELES Netflix announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire the assets of Warner Bros. for $82.7 billion....
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Nielsens Gracenote has launched Gracenote Content Connect, a new ad platform that provides agencies, brands, supply-side platforms (SSPs) and demand-si...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK In an most important update to the workings of deal-based programmatic advertising, IAB Tech Lab has released version 1.0 of its Deals API for public c...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Pass the turkey. Pass the stuffing. Pass the cranberry sauce. All are common requests of Americans celebrating Thanksgiving Day with family and f...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Iris, the new cloud-connected camera control platform, has officially launched with features that turn virtually any PTZ camera into a software-connect...
05/12/2025
HOLLYWOOD, Calif. Netflix announced today that it has entered into an agreement to acquire the assets of Warner Bros. for $82.7 billion....
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Iris, the new cloud-connected camera control platform, has officially launched with features that turn virtually any PTZ camera into a software-connect...
05/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has approved AT&T's $1.02 billion acquisition of spectrum from UScellular in a decision that was issued sho...
05/12/2025
The Best Coldplay Songs: 21 Tracks That Shoot for the Stars From Yellow to Viva La Vida, Fix You to Paradise, this playlist goes back to the start.
December ...
05/12/2025
Zafris Lecture Series Brings Nabil Ayers to Berklee The 32nd annual James G. Zafris Distinguished Lecture series was held on Thursday, November 13, with guest...
05/12/2025
Back to All News
Netflix Unveils the First Look for Land of Sin' - Premier...
05/12/2025
Introducing New Perks to Help You Get Even More from LinkedIn Premium Published on Dec 5, 2025 Categories: Company News, Product News
LinkedIn Corporate Co...
05/12/2025
Friday 5 December 2025
A new Game of Thrones Tale: Official trailer for Sky Exc...
05/12/2025
Back to All News
Don Lee, Lee Jin-uk, and Lalisa Manobal to Star in Netflix Act...
05/12/2025
Tis the season of giving once again and this year we've taken our Give Back Fridays' concept and turned it on its head.
In the autumn we were approach...
05/12/2025
Brayden Gogis doesn't remember a time when he wasn't completely fixated on games in all forms. In preschool, when they asked us to dress up as what we ...
05/12/2025
The Grinch steals the spotlight as the theme for The Late Late Toy Show 2025
Tune in tonight at 9:35pm on RT One and worldwide on RT Player
#LateLateToyShow...
05/12/2025
RT Announces New Presenters of Flagship News Programmes
New RT Six One News co-presenter Tommy Meskill
Sarah McInerney & Justin McCarthy join Morning Ir...
04/12/2025
ToolsOnAir Blackmagic Design HyperDeck Event Presets for just:in mac pro 2025 & ...
04/12/2025
ToolsOnAir AJA Ki Pro Event Presets for just:in mac pro 2025 & just:in linux
More Details:Starting with version 5.5, both just:in mac pro and just:in linux sol...
04/12/2025
Wangu Kanuri from Kenya and Godwin Asediba from Ghana are two of this years finalists for Thomsons Young Journalist of the Year Award. The pair are runners-up i...
04/12/2025
SVG Sit-Down: ProximaVision's Claudio Lisman on Why Tethered Drones Could Be...
04/12/2025
SVG Campus Shot Callers: Imry Halevi, Senior Associate Director of Athletics, Co...
04/12/2025
Platinum White Paper: LiveU Lightweight Sports Production: A Step Change in Spor...
04/12/2025
London to Riyadh: DAZN brings the boxing glamour to new production levels for Be...
04/12/2025
Analysis: Paramount bets on the battering ram' with Champions League play By Callum McCarthy, Editor-at-Large
Tuesday, December 2, 2025 - 10:12
Print ...
04/12/2025
Space City Home Network Launches SCHN DTC App for Astros and RocketsThe Rockets and Astros were previously the lone NBA and MLB teams without a DTC appBy Jason...
04/12/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: Content Workflows Workshop Spotlights Evolution of Spor...
04/12/2025
New Sponsor Spotlight: Geotech's Patrick Wambold On the Unreal Engine Revolu...
04/12/2025
Curt Gowdy Jr. - Master Storyteller, Nationally and RegionallyBy Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S.
Thursday, December 4, 2025 - 1:52 pm
Print This Sto...
04/12/2025
(L-R) Rebecca Lichtenfeld, Mohammadreza Eyni, Sara Khaki, and Judith Helfand att...
Katy Perrys latest music video for the hip hop-infused #1 hit single Dark Horse is a bold, Egyptian-themed cinematic epic created by storytelling studio Mirada. Starring Katy-P tra, the video is a larger-than-life tale that follows the legendary Queen of Memphis as a parade of would-be suitors vie for her heart. 
