Scott Benson: Toh Kay “With Any Sort Of Certainty”

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Editor’s Note:
Scott’s video has been taken off of Vimeo/YouTube due to legal crossfire between a record label and the artist. As soon as it is back online we will re-embed it.

We last featured Pittsburgh-based Scott Benson when he released his cosmic music video for The Murf’s Rendezvous. His new music video for Toh Kay‘s With Any Sort Of Certainty is a story about not being ok, and trying to be.

I’m loving how Scott’s style is developing. Check out the sequence starting at 2:05 as the photographer leaves his office to see a brilliant combination of his angular, flat character designs combining with lush lighting and dimensional cues. At 3:11, as the protagonist’s world starts to break apart, the pixels tear away as well.

I highly recommending heading over to Scott’s blog to read more about the music video’s genesis. Here’s an excerpt:

I normally write big long statements about pieces like this, about what I was trying to say and whatnot. But this time I’m not. I’m interested in what, if anything, people take from it. I will say it’s a story about not being ok, and trying to be. Some of this vid is about ideas I think about a lot, and some of it is more directly about my own life. I guess everything anyone makes is like that.

And Tomas’ great song really pushed it in the direction in ended up going. We were apparently mind-melded at some point last fall when all of this was coming together, as I think the vid and the song comment on each other nicely. I think. But I don’t know. That’s your call. Either way, I am grateful to Tomas for trusting me with an open brief, and allowing me to go nuts with the story and direction.

Moniker: Do Not Touch


Amsterdam-based Moniker (Roel Wouters, Luna Maurer, Jonathan Puckey) have created a Do Not Touch – a crowd-sourced music video for Light Light’s Kilo. “After 50 years of pointing and clicking, we are celebrating the nearing end of the computer cursor with a music video where all our cursors can be seen together for one last time.”

As you watch the video, your cursor data is recorded and then composited into the music video on the hour. There’s something magical about the buzzing flurry of cursors, imagining people all over the world going through the same three minute experience you’re participating in at this very moment. If you look closely you will see four different types of cursors: Mac, Windows XP, Windows 7 and Ubuntu/Linux.

Warning: This music may or may not by NSFW… depending on how many cursors have been recorded and where they ended up. At the time of posting it was almost SFW… ;)

Hat tip to the awesome Creative Applications.

Credits

Hayley Morris: Iron & Wine “Joy”


Hayley Morris creates a beautiful watercolor and stop-motion world for Iron & Wine’s Joy. The stunning music video was created over the course of two months in her Brookyln studio. Hayley was kind enough to share some of her creative process with us.

When brainstorming ideas for possible narratives and visual interpretations of the song I was drawn to a particular lyric. “Deep inside the heart of this crazy mess I’m only calm when I get lost within your wilderness.” This is what sparked my idea.

Joy is a song about love and taking a moment to realize how someone can vastly change how you perceive yourself and the world around you. My goal for this video was to make the viewer feel this sense of joy, discovery and appreciation by following the organic flow of the song as the landscape changes through bursts of color, growth and transformation. Through his eyes we see how the woman Sam sings about changes his world by catching glimpses of her within the different plants, rocks, trees and objects that occupy the scenery/himself. In the end we see that he is full of color and vibrancy.

The video is a mixed-media piece. It’s composed of a blend of rotoscope watercolor animations and stop-motion. I hand made every piece in the landscape from found objects, paper, clay and various materials, and then projected her image into the set pieces. Each scene was shot frame by frame with Dragon in my studio space in my apartment. It was nice rolling out of bed and ready for work!


Credits

Memoma: CutOut Fest 2013 Teaser


Mexico-based Memoma cel animates the hell out of the CutOut Fest 2013 Teaser.

Parallel: Nespresso Mobile


Parallel (Quentin Baillieux and Raphaëlle Tinland) is the team that brought you the lovely Pernod Ricard spot. Love the lighting across the angular designs.

Credits

Smith & Foulkes: Fuze Tea “When This Meets That”


Adorable design in this Smith & Foulkes directed gem for Fuze Tea.

Big thanks to Lewis and Nexus for the team credits!

Credits

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