Anna Ginsburg and Parallel Teeth create second animated video for Jack Steadman’s solo project, Mr Jukes

Date
31 May 2017

Strange Beast directors Anna Ginsburg and Parallel Teeth (AKA Rob Wallace) have joined forces to create the second video for Bombay Bicycle Club frontman Jack Steadman’s solo project, Mr Jukes. The project is an album of collaborations with a range of different artists and this track, Grant Green, features American funk, soul and R&B singer Charles Bradley.

The concept behind the video sees Jack and Charles go about their day, carrying out everyday activities before going to a party and the action takes place in a “vibrantly animated, psychedelic” world, reminiscent of the 60s with a contemporary feel.

“The pacing and edit of the visuals are intrinsically linked to the track,” says Parallel Teeth. “Each time the track shifts into a new part of the song we either go to a new location or we shift from a hard edit into a looping segment.” The video is split into three main sections: the barbershop, the tube carriage and the finale party sequence. “There’s also a couple extra bonkers surreal sections in the middle in which you follow Jack and Charles zooming down an enormous water slide in billowing swimming trunks,” says Anna.

“The process was pretty standard for creating a narrative-driven piece. Moving from a fleshed-out idea, to a tight storyboard, through to animating and final touches,” explains Parallel Teeth. ““Throughout the whole project we worked through pretty much every element together while bouncing ideas off each other."

Anna agrees: “Rob and I settled on a design style which meets somewhere in the middle of our aesthetics. The extremely talented Guy Fields helped us design the mass of extra characters and elements, his style worked wonderfully for this video. Rob and I wrote the treatment together and then split the task of storyboarding the action.”

For the directors, the main challenge was making a hand-drawn animated video which is predominately based on character performance. “I have never made such a dense and theatrically-drawn film,” says Anna. “There are moments which resemble a live-action musical with (pole) dancing, singing and spinning.”

For Parallel Teeth, working out “how each of Charles’ screams would be worked into the video” was one of the most enjoyable parts of the project and it’s this raw passion felt from the artists involved that Anna was drawn to. “I wanted to celebrate the fact that neither artist was taking themselves too seriously,” she says. “They were open to me using humour in their characterisations.”

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Anna Ginsburg and Parallel Teeth: Grant Green, Mr Jukes (still)

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Anna Ginsburg and Parallel Teeth: Grant Green, Mr Jukes (still)

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Anna Ginsburg and Parallel Teeth: Grant Green, Mr Jukes (still)

Above

Anna Ginsburg and Parallel Teeth: Grant Green, Mr Jukes (still)

Above

Anna Ginsburg and Parallel Teeth: Grant Green, Mr Jukes (still)

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About the Author

Rebecca Fulleylove

Rebecca Fulleylove is a freelance writer and editor specialising in art, design and culture. She is also senior writer at Creative Review, having previously worked at Elephant, Google Arts & Culture, and It’s Nice That.

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