Music: Australian studio Dropbear Digital employed over 330 paper illustrations to inform the story of a wandering spirit in this cease-motion video for John Butler Trio’s new single, Spring to Come.
Director Jonathan Chong of Dropbear Digital collaborated with independent illustrator Snip Green to make the film.
Connected story: SBTRKT’s animated music video follows a creature via urban dystopia
“The story is about an Earth-bound spirit known as Jack who is searching for his long lost wife called Spring,” Chong told Dezeen.
“He wanders the landscape as it alterations via the seasons and all about him the cycle of life continues,” the director stated. “In the end he finds Spring and returns to the light.”
Beginning with an animation of a pop-up book opening, the film cuts to Jack and Spring’s graves, before following Jack’s spirit by way of an otherworldly landscape.
“It was straight inspired by the underlying which means of the song that no matter how dark items can get there’s usually light at the finish of the tunnel and things never remain the very same forever – spring at some point comes complete circle,” mentioned Chong.
Australian soft rockers John Butler Trio approached Dropbear Digital about producing the video soon after seeing a stop-motion promo Chong created for Melbourne outfit Hudson and Troop.
The director told Dezeen that virtually almost everything in the James Butler Trio video “was developed out of paper – from the plants to the animals and the human characters.”
“Almost everything had to be cut out and created by hand. It was animated on a standard animation stand that consisted of three to four layers of glass so that the background, foreground and middle ground could be divided up and animated separately.”
Even though most of the effects in the film were produced in-camera, some were produced after filming. “The setting sun was a sensible light on a slider that was animated by hand, and then the sky and stars were a digital impact,” Chong explained.
The director animated the film utilizing Dragonframe quit-motion software. Spring to Come features on John Butler Trio’s sixth album, Flesh and Blood.
