MilAn, thank you so much. There is a mention of this new video on the cover of our local Seattle newspaper today. It is really creative - in look and content. The illustrator, Daniel Auber, and producer, Sarah Cline, are core The Masses folk. And I love the new-to-me Masses animated logo at the end, super-creative. It is such a bummer that he cannot continue to work with these wonderfully creative and supportive people. And a bummer for them, since he helped them with much-needed cash for their projects. I gave them a donation in Heath's name when he died, but probably won't often again, if ever.
http://www.wearethemasses.com/blogs/making-king-rat-daniel-auberMaking "King Rat" by Daniel Auber
When
Heath asked me to collaborate on this video I found it more than just a good cause, I was incredibly happy to have that first experience of he and I sitting by a desk and giving life to something together. So far our previous collaborations were of a different nature (a big movie production and a lot of cooking at dinner parties) I was confident because, in my opinion, if someone can cook together, they can also make a movie.
The creation of an artwork is a process that people enjoy in different ways. For some it's painful, for others it's joyful, but it's always hard work. The first part of the creation for the "King Rat" video (two weeks of making the animatic with Heath) had been just a lot of fun and discovery. We were both new to this kind of work, and that's what kept us excited.
A few weeks before starting I made a sketch of a fishing whale character. Heath liked it, so I knew more or less what kind of style I should draw going forward. When I joined him in London, Terry Gilliam let us work in the conference room of his visual effects company (Peerless). It was luxury: we had a massive window overlooking Covent Garden, and Terry's creative vibrations in the air.
Terry would come to see the progress every once in a while and we were excited to hear his advice. This is why Heath decided to have the "Monty Python trumpets" popping down from the clouds, and also why I proposed to have Terry's face as "The Sun" in our video. We felt like school kids inspired by our favorite teacher.
Ninety percent of the drawings that are used in the video were intended to be storyboard sketches. This was our working chain: Heath would tell me what happens in the scene, I would draw the shots, then he would edit them with the song. We laughed like children as we looked at the results, the new toy was working.
We started the process from the beginning of the song:
Blue colours are bright and serene, with a tiny tone of green suggesting a possible sinister evolution in the story.
As the video advances, the quantity of green and black increases, preparing us for darkness.
When our eyes have adjusted to the desaturated tones, a complementary bright red starts to appear.
The clip had to be shocking. The fun we were having was less important than the strength of Heath's message in favour of marine wildlife. The treatment he wrote initially was a bit longer. We had to cut the restaurant scene where the whales eat sushi made with human fingers. It didn't matter because the pet seal's close-up was a strong ending.
The powerful song by Modest Mouse was a major inspiration. Isaac's dramatic voice was driving us towards a deranged imaginative territory. It was great.
At the end of that process, in our high-tech conference room we made a projection for Terry and the Peerless people that saw us walking in and out for weeks (only Nicky Valsamakis knew exactly what was going on all the way, and obviously our Masses colleagues back home in LA).
The animatic was already a roughly functional music video by itself.
After Heath left us, I didn't have any intention of finishing the video without him. It was Sara Cline who had the idea of finishing it, so Heath's cause against whale hunting would find exposure. And we would all have the pleasure of seeing another one of his challenging works. I said yes with no hesitation.
The second stage of making the video, with lead animator Norris Houk and animator Jade Taglioli, was about bringing to life the still drawings from the animatic.
My mind was still populated by all the information and details that Heath transmitted me during the London days. I knew exactly what he had in mind for the animation. For example, his description of the whales walking towards the bow of the boat, or dancing during the party, was very precise. We both had a whale dance in the office before starting to work on that sequence.
In fact, the main quality that would have made Heath a great director, in my opinion, was his ability to be contagious with his ideas, and to describe them in a very convincing way, with a lot of joy. Work has to be fun somehow, otherwise it's not worth it.
Jade and Norris did a remarkable job animating those shots for a month. My duty was to pass the message on, as precisely as possible.
My favourite memory on this video is very far from its shocking and distinctive taste. It's quite cheesy, actually: whilst we spent long days working on the animatic, listening endlessly to interrupted bits of Isaac's haunting and cavernous voice, there was another song being played constantly coming from outside the window.
It wasn't annoying us because its paradisiac nature was having a complementary effect on us. It was Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's version of "Somewhere Over The Rainbow". Every time I randomly hear that song, I think of how lucky I was to be over there for a few wonderful weeks.
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