Adam Wells animates Love and Radio’s Dan Deacon interview through obtuse vignettes

Date
19 July 2017

Animator Adam Wells has brought to life podcast Love and Radio’s interview with Dan Deacon using animated vignettes, depicting tales from the road on tour with the musician. Taking an extract of the broadcast, Adam has animated the story using abstract, Kandinsky-inspired illustrations that are momentarily “illuminated” on a black background, kept purposefully mysterious.

“The fact that the story was intended for radio has very much shaped the direction,” Adam explains. “I wanted to carefully preserve the aspect of the story. Film is such a prescriptive medium, so I was hoping the framing would be more suggestive vignettes of figures and situations, allowing people to use a little bit of imagination when watching.”

Colours are also restricted to mostly jewel tones of indigo and navy, inspired by the backgrounds of Maurice Noble, “particularly how he handles value in an image,” and alluding to the nighttime narrative. “The story itself is somewhat dreamy so I tried to reflect that with the palette. Personal preference usually keeps me away from the purple end of the spectrum but it worked in this case.”

The sharp, angular characters, while drawn from Kandinsky’s jazz characters, again are part of Adam’s endeavour not to over-explain, and let the viewer do the work. “I tried to use fewer graphical elements to describe subjects. Characters tend to be indispensable from one another. The dog is a nice example – it’s something I really wanted people to imagine, a kind of visual placeholder.”

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Adam Wells: Love and Radio – Animal Parts

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Adam Wells: Love and Radio – Animal Parts

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Adam Wells: Love and Radio – Animal Parts

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Adam Wells: Love and Radio – Animal Parts

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Adam Wells: Love and Radio – Animal Parts

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Adam Wells: Love and Radio – Animal Parts

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Adam Wells: Love and Radio – Animal Parts

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Jenny Brewer

Jenny oversees our editorial output across work, news and features. She was previously It’s Nice That's news editor. Get in touch with any big creative stories, tips, pitches, news and opinions, or questions about all things editorial.

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