Thursday 15th May: Anushka Album Shoot Behind the Scenes

Here are a few behind the scenes snaps from the shoot for Anushka's forthcoming album 'Broken Circuit' which I have art directed and made some new cosmic headphones for.  After our story for i-D last year, we worked with Stephanie Sian Smith again to capture the vision which I plotted out on a square template.  Claude d'Avoine has been translating and interpreting my sketch into the final design which has just been printed into the promo CD and is set for release on the 30th June on Brownswood Recordings, available for preorder now.  If you head over to their Facebook page, you can see the lead shot on their banner and identity.  

(Art Direction: Fred Butler, Photography: Stephanie Smith, Design: Claude d’Avoine, Styling: PC Williams, Hair: Valerie Benavides , Make-Up: Theresa Davies) 

Weds 14th May: Metronomy's "The Resevoir" directed by Daniel Brereton

So how do you follow up the scoop of a music video directed by Michel Gondry?  The answer is something to blow that out of the water and then some.  This happens via sea water hand-drawn in wave strokes of felt-tip pen, in an animation that took eight weeks to make.  Regular Metronomy collaborator director Daniel Brereton amalgamated references of past videos into the narrative of this new psychedelic treatment, all realised with individually drawn frames.  You can pick out his own early "Radio Ladio" Green Faces, to the karaoke ping pong song from "A Thing For Me" to David Wilson's directed "The Bay" with the afore mentioned Cornish sea.  

With the initial brief for an animation from Joe Mount, Dan created the concept and illustrations which were then animated page by page with this still camera by Matt Lloyd.  As you can see from these process snaps - each still was drawn out in pencil on white paper as a template and then replicated with the coloured pens thru a light-box onto a print-making paper for the lush grainy background. Dan's objective was to "make something people would watch more than once, as i think too much stuff is of this nature" which I think they have perfectly achieved with this immense scale, labour of love.  Anyone can appreciate how much hard work has gone into it, as it's clear that no trickery has been employed with the lines moving around and never repeating.  The beauty is the way the characters and shapes lead you thru scene to scene via trippy angled perspectives which I can't imagine how were story-boarded.  Enough of me explaining ................ take a look for yourself and soak up the pure joy of this incredibly planned piece of pop promo, constructed from a deceptively simple material: 

Metronomy - Reservoir from daniel brereton on Vimeo.

Thanks to Dan for these snaps from the work in progress.  Giff taken from Matt's site.