Artist Spotlight: Ari Gibson

Fans of the Australian musician Gotye most likely enjoyed his recent performance on SNL this past weekend. They also likely have seen his hugely popular music video for Someone I used to know. Well, lucky for us Gotye, or at least his producers seem to be fans of 2D animation.

For the song Bronte off his album Making Mirrors, Gotye enlisted the help of animator and fellow Australian Ari Gibson. The visuals follow the adventures of a young girl’s adventures in the woods behind her house. The woods are inhabited with mystical, bison-like creatures. She befriends these strange creatures and spends the day romping around the large, misty woods with her new companions. Eventually though she must return to her normal life and deal with the sacrifice.

It is an interesting film filled with stunning imagery. It shares similarities in story with the Jungle Book and the imagery has something of a Princess Mononoke quality to it. Still it remains independent and fresh in its cinematography.

While Ari Gibson animated, Jason Pamment was responsible for backgrounds and they are simply gorgeous. Studio Ghibli and Kazuo Oga’s backgrounds in films like Princess Mononoke and My Neighbor Totoro have become the designs that all other misty forests in animated films have been compared. Certainly, comparisons can be made between the two but the digital art that Pamment has created gives the film both a classically beautiful feel and a contemporary design.

  Gotye – Bronte – official film clip from Gotye on Vimeo.

**Intro to Animation students will note the excellent use of leaf drop animations.

Make sure to check out mechanicalapple.com to see more of Gibson’s work. It is fantastic. On his blog you can catch his other films including The Lost Girl and The Cat Piano. Both are equally amazing and both venture off into different styles that show just how brilliantly imaginative Gibson is as a filmmaker. Be sure to notice and admire the cinematography and economy of assets in The Lost Girl.