The archive · Content & Film · Marketing decision · 2025
Mac Miller's Balloonerism turns a posthumous album into a 24-minute animated film
Instead of a music video, Mac Miller's posthumous album Balloonerism came with a 24-minute CG film that plays its story of lost innocence.
Mac Miller
What it had to solve
Balloonerism, a posthumous Mac Miller album, needed a launch piece that could carry its music without the artist present to perform or explain it.
How it works
Balloonerism is a posthumous Mac Miller album, and its D&AD award entry opens not with a music video but with a film: a 24-minute CG animated short built on the album's lyrics and music.
The film follows a group of school friends who are transfigured by the music of a chord organ and launched into a shadow world. Pursued by the turtle of time, they must plod through the underbelly of adulthood — a visual journey into the album's central themes of lost innocence, self-sabotage and the uncertainties of the future.
Rather than staging the artist or rehashing biography, the release gave the album its own mythology, letting listeners watch the record's inner story unfold over 24 minutes. D&AD keeps the work in its awards archive under Music Videos; the archive page records no view or sales figures.
Why it lands
- A posthumous release cannot be launched by the artist performing or explaining the album, so the music itself had to carry the story.
- Committing to a 24-minute film instead of a three-minute video gave the record a narrative world and a reason to watch beyond a single clip.
- The invented mythology — chord organ, shadow world, turtle of time — mirrors the album's real themes of lost innocence and self-sabotage without staging the artist's biography.
- Animation can show fantasy literally, letting the music's inner states become visible characters and places rather than metaphors in a caption.
What it did
The album's release came with a complete visual narrative — a 24-minute film rather than a one-song video — and the work is preserved in D&AD's awards archive under Music Videos.
What you can take
When the artist cannot launch the work, let the work itself carry the story: a full-length film gives an album a mythology instead of a promotional video.
Since then
The film is preserved in D&AD's awards archive, which lists Mac Miller as client and files the work under Music Videos. The archive page records no view counts or sales data, so the film's reach beyond the album launch is not documented in the source.
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