First things first; the term “animation” is an umbrella term. We sometimes get artists saying they’d like an animated music video, here’s the thing; that could mean anything between cell animation like old fashioned cartoons, CG like Monsters Inc, stop motion like Wallace and Gromit, filming against Green Screen then placing them into another environment and many other variations. They all require different skill sets and disciplines, each very respectable. Animation is basically giving movement to something. In the context of music videos animation can be applied to all types; it can be a narrative stop motion video, a performance video against green screen or a 3D CG concept video full of fun and weird shapes.

Animation is by definition – versatile. Animation should only be used when it’s right, it should feel right and not used as a gimmick. I’m a huge fan of stop motion and the amount of skill, talent and discipline that goes into it and history has some fantastic examples (yes of course I’m going to show you): Nina Simone’s My Baby Just Cares For Me used Claymation stop motion, Peter Gabriel’s Sledgehammer used both stop motion (animating objects) and pixilation (animating people) and a personal favorite of mine Her Morning Elegance from Oren Lavie is particularly inventive. Animation opens new windows of opportunity. When you are limited by what you have; animation makes the options limitless.

Performance, narrative, concept, lyric and animation are in my eyes the main types of music videos. The interesting thing is that in most cases a video will utilize one, two or all of these – the key is that they must all work cohesively with a larger idea. Yes these types exist and are used and used but you can make each element your own by showing people something they haven’t seen before or showing people something they have seen in a way they would never have expected. Contact us today!