Ever a fan of Gianluca Maruotti’s music videos, we were happy to come across his newest animation piece: an homage of sorts to 60’s English singer-songwriter, Nick Drake, as re-conceived in 2022. “Luckily I was given complete creative freedom from the artists/musicians Roberto Angelini and Rodrigo D’Erasmo, two extremely talented friends of mine,” Maruotti told us. “Their song ‘Harvest Breed’ is the cover of a Nick Drake’s song created about 50 years ago.”

A skilled music video that builds and falls with the rising tension of the song, the piece features three sculpted versions of what an instrument might be, on a fictional, stop motion plane. “This animated music video is created in stop motion using only colored plasticine (therefore it is a claymation),” Maruotti told us. “The project needed to be ready in a couple of months, which isn’t ideal, especially considering how complex and time-consuming stop motion technique is.”

Still, it sounds like this director enjoyed himself. “I love morphing puppets and elements in general. In a way it is pleasant, relaxing and even therapeutic. Nothing can really go wrong if you are just squashing clay! It’s a safe ground for animators with poor technique like me. And I love the ‘in between’ shapes even more than the final ones,” he said of the piece, whose pacing and clean format allows the viewer to appreciate the same.

“So I simply crushed everything frame by frame. Most of the video is made by those clips, sometimes edited in reverse. Animation is hardly ever fun, especially if you are working under pressure, but for this project I managed to have a fairly enjoyable time.”

For more on the making of this video, check out the bts photos below: