Interview: Shynola and “Strawberry Swing”

shynola-interview
“We never claim to be original, just rigorous.”

So says Chris Harding, one of London-based Shynola’s four founders, in our interview with him about their recent music video for Coldplay’s “Strawberry Swing.”

Despite the disclaimer, Shynola’s body of work—especially their music videos—have inspired thousands of fans worldwide with their innovative visuals and compelling narratives. Motionographer’s Lilian Darmono and James Wignall went deep with Chris about the process behind “Strawberry Swing” and touched on Shynola’s development over the years.

Read the interview

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About the author

Justin Cone

/ justincone.com
Together with Carlos El Asmar, Justin co-founded Motionographer, F5 and The Motion Awards. He currently lives in Austin, Texas with is wife, son and fluffball of a dog. Before taking on Motionographer full-time, Justin worked in various capacities at Psyop, NBC-Universal, Apple, Adobe and SCAD.

4 Comments

BrandonLori

Beautiful video and insightful interview! “Strawberry Swing” has a child-like quality to it that makes you feel like you’re flipping through an illustrated children’s book. The continual fluidity of the story is really spellbinding, and leaves you totally engrossed in their technique. That’s a surprise, because usually, works that rely (or completely revolve) around some type of animation device, come off as too gimmicky. Shyola’s decision to make cuts – instead of tracking and dollying the camera around – make it work. They stayed committed, but switched it up, and the break at the end makes the time invested worth it. Most music videos have a modest expiration-date, but this one, I think, for all the originality, will have a long shelf-life…

Simon Robson

There’s only one Shynola

Joe Clay

It was good enough to actually make me listen to a Coldplay song.

safetyfirst

Very well done clip!

Since the interview mentions just music videos done within this concept, I think it is important to point out artist Robin Rhode who used this for several of his works for a long time:

https://www.artnet.com/Magazine/features/robinson/robinson6-20-8.asp

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