Virtual band Gorillaz – the brainchild of master musician Damon Albarn and illustrator Jamie Hewlett – are back with a new album, The Mountain. To promote it, Albarn and Hewlett are collaborating with a large cast of characters.
Gorillaz worked with London-based production company The Line to produce the above animated eight-minute video, “The Mountain, The Moon Cave and The Sad God,” featuring the band’s four key characters: lead singer 2D, bassist Murdoc Niccals, guitarist and keyboardist Noodle and drummer Russel Hobbs.
The video’s title corresponds to three songs from the new album and pays homage to the animation of the 1960s, made famous in such movies as Disney’s The Jungle Book and Robin Hood. The video’s first act itself references The Jungle Book, with Noodle taking on the Mowgli role. A snake and a tiger show up who look quite similar to Kaa and Shere Khan from the original movie and Noodle floats down the river on Hobbs much like Mowgli rode down the river on the belly of Baloo the bear.
“We worked incredibly hard to make it as period-accurate as possible and, like all our projects, it was hand-drawn by an incredible team of artists. We even used a variety of practical effects in the film, which was a lot of fun to do. We had a brilliant time making this film and learnt a huge amount while studying the masters of the 60s and 70s,” writes The Line on its website.
While the characters are drawn in 2D line animation, the backgrounds are beautiful watercolor paintings.
“We tried to compose shots in the same way they would have in the animated feature films of the 60s, they often painted master backgrounds for scenes and cut into crops of these, often that resulted in beautiful impressionistic close ups of beautiful brush work and simplification reminiscent of depth of field in camera,” The Line wrote.
“All the backgrounds are hand painted, but for many of the shots we adopted a hybrid approach, mixing real watercolours with a digital polish and final paint. The natural behaviour of watercolours on paper, the way pigments bleed, settle and absorb into the surface, revealing its texture, is difficult to replicate digitally. With traditional materials, you get those organic qualities for free.”
Spotify also jumped in on promotion for the album, posting billboards of all four characters throughout London with hidden QR codes embedded in them. People who gather all of the QR codes will be sent on a treasure hunt to find tour tickets, merch and band memorabilia.
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