The Octopus Project
An Evening with Rthrtha
Video
Peek-A-Boo Records commissioned this stop-motion music video for a single off of the The Octopus Project album Hello, Avalanche. The video follows the band on an impressionistic journey to meet a cosmic pink bat named Rthrtha. A full plot synopsis can be found here.
An Evening with Rthrtha was featured in the international design journal IdN and the motion graphics publication Stash. It was selected to screen at the South by Southwest Film Festival, 2009.
Phillip Niemeyer — co-direction, asset creation & animation
Ryan Junell — co-direction, photography & animation.
Dana McClure — asset creation & animation
Tanya Newton-John — animation assistance
Stills
Process
A timeline/grid divides the song into beats, measures and sections. Each section has a dominant color and a thematic focus.
Stop motion clips were made from blown ink and paint, transparencies on overhead projectors and light tables, fluorescent light fluctuation, screen printed backgrounds, Spanish Moss, (a little edible tree parasite found all over South and Central Texas), and many other things.
The assets were animated improvisationally and edited into succinct stop-motion loops. These loops were then digitally layered over one another. For the final cut, we assembled and layered over 5,000 still photos.