Bjork lays on the spectacle in a new music video for “Wanderlust,” and the results are quite gorgeous, even in advance of a promised 3D version. If you had the misfortune of trying to watch it in Yahoo’s world-premiere, horribly-overcompressed video early this week, give it another go. (I’m glad I waited to post this rather than have to show that! Yikes!)
As of press time, Motionographer has a high-quality QuickTime file so you can watch this in all its glory.
The results are a real multimedia extravaganza. The painterly wonderland in the surrounding world is clever digital graphics and computer 3D, though made to look organic, while foreground beasties, costumes, and prosthetics are all real-for-real. Here’s the timelapse of it all coming together:
The cast of thousands includes:
- Directors Encyclopedia Pictura (Isaiah Saxon and Sean Hellfritsch), who got the music vid world buzzing earlier with their video “Knife” for Grizzly Bear; see further commentary from blog Shots Ring Out
- NYC motion graphics firm UVPHACTORY, seen before working on My Chemical Romance’s “I Don’t Love You.”
- Damijan Saccio led the CG team from UVPHACTORY. I don’t know who he is, not that that means much. Damijan, say hi if you’re out there…
- John Weissberger and Vanessa Waring did the puppetry; Circus Minimus member Jessica Scott was lead pupeteer
- Chris Elam, whom I do happen to know personally, was choreographer
… to say nothing of the stereography work which we’ll be seeing soon.
Now, the odds of any of us ascending to Bjork-like budgets tend on the slim side, but I do like the convergence of the pro digital motion scene with the artsy puppetry – making physical stuff crowd. I know at least a couple of the people on the dance/puppetry side of this project, and I also know making that convergence work is a tremendous challenge, artistically and technically. The challenge remains making it come together in lower-budget projects and with the often more-challenging realm of live performance.
How to get free 3D specs for the 3D version [bjork.com]
Making of video timelapse on Facebook