Web Animation Watch: Music Video Special 2020
In this latest volume of our occasional Web Animation Watch: Music Video Special we look at some of the latest and greatest.
A Little Too Much | Kai
Martina Scarpelli award winning director of the short Egg, directs this stylish video for the track A Little Too Much by Canadian artist Kai. The video effectively makes use of stark monochrome imagery (with the very occasional blush of colour). It sees the everyday and mundane transform into surreal and abstract imagery, that is inspired by the song's themes of letting go of the fear of greatness, and realising that 'too much' can be beautiful. Italian animator Scarpelli and her team created the video while in lockdown in Viborg, Denmark.
Quarantine | Shahin Novrasli
Taking inspiration from current events, this video accompanying this track from virtusoso pianist Shahin Novralsi is a much darker piece. Animated and illustarted by Slovenian artist Tom VGN and written and produced by Nasib Piriyev, it comes from an album written and recorded by Novrasli during the lockdown. The experimental film is intended to try to represent the 'madness and surreealism' that has surrounded us during this truly strange time.
Snowchild | The Weeknd
Autocorrect's nightmare The Weeknd (seriously spellcheck, that's how it's spelled!) stars in this animated, apparently semi-autobiographical video for this track from his hit album After Hours. We suspect there's some artistic liscence in there somewhere although, unless his real life did include lightsaber battles and sexy ladies who turn into panthers. The anime styled video is produced by D'ART Shtajio Studio, the first black-owned animation studio in Japan
Superheroes | Stormzy
Inspired by the other major story of 2020, Superheroes by UK Grime icon Stormzy is dedicated to celebrating and uplifting the black community. The video takes its inspiration directly from the track, adds gorgeous pastel-coloured visuals and adds a comic-book twist to reflect the title. We get some real Spider-Verse vibes, but not from the superhero side, but in how it channels the authentic relationship between father and son. The real emotional wallop comes at the end when it ties it explicitly into the Black Lives Matter movement. Powerful, thought-provoking stuff.
Take Over | Jeremy McKinnon, Max and Henry
Video game franchise League Of Legends has inspired a whole load of animated music videos, inlcuding the now iconic Pop Stars. The new MV Take Over is another case of them knocking it out of the park. Coming from London-based animation studio The Line, this video is exhilirating, kinetic and stylish, with a sort-of-but-not-quite-anime style and impressively mounted action. Whenever a music video leaves you wishing it was a movie or TV series, you know it's got to be something pretty special.
