Moving Along
Produced by: Mathew Reeve
Completion Date: June 2004
Running Time: 3 minutes
Patrick Smith presents his animated music video "Moving Along" by the enigmatic UK hip-hop group "The Planets". Smith, is best known for his independent films, and his familiar, iconic, commercial productions like the Zoloft "Dot", and animated series like MTV's "Daria" and "Downtown".
"Moving Along" starts off with a band of menacing figures, looking like bizarre dolls, stitched out of cloth. They veer over a pulsing globe, behind a painterly backdrop. The animation continues with strange, abstract imagery of characters morphing and mutating into others, this is separated by a reoccurring sequence of a character sewing up the head of another.
The animation hits fast but smooth, we see a pair of figures singing along to the chorus with hand puppets, we see a group of figures hold up wooden swords as dark ravens fly over head. We see strutting characters walking into one another and stretching apart, reminiscent of the hallucination sequence in Dumbo. The video ends with the now familiar group peering over the same pulsating globe.
The technique is very traditional and hand done, although Smith cites the extensive use of computers.
"My goal was to make it look like cel animation, very hand drawn. This matches the underground feel of the music." Smith said. "Coloring and compositing on a computer saves a lot of time and money, we just couldn't do it on cels, it would have taken too long."
The video premiered internationally on MTV Networks. It won the "Jury Prize" at the 2004 China International Cartoon Animation Festival, the "Best Animated Music Video" at the 2004 Urban Media Makers Film Festival, and "Best Music Video" at the 2007 No Exit Music Video Festival.
The Video
