Elbow - Open arms

Followers of Elbow will know of the band’s love of illustrator Oliver East’s idiosyncratic work – his illustrations grace the covers of every one of their releases since 2008. And now Oliver has now teamed up with Trunk Animation to create a new video for Elbow’s Open Arms.

The track celebrates lead singer Guy Garvey’s local parish hall – location of many Garvey/Elbow celebrations – and Trunk’s animators and compositors, led by directors Grigoris Leontiades and Layla Atkinson, spent five weeks and a couple of late nights creating the distinctive video from Oliver’s original storyboards.

An earthbound loose narrative soon takes flight into imagination – giving full vent to Oliver’s drawing style – as ribbons reminiscent of a zoetrope that wind around the characters in the video. Ranges of textures were created to capture the delicacy of Oliver’s pen washes, and Trunk’s ace compositor Steven Azancot used Cinema 4D to create 3D ribbons that were placed into the 2D space.

As with the entire video, the ribbons were animated at 8 frames a second to give it a very hand-drawn feel. In short, a fine, lyrical addition to Trunk’s catalogue of videos for British indie bands, including Hot Chip and Magic Numbers.

Elbow
Open Arms (Polydor)
Prod co: Trunk Animation
Art Director: Oliver East
Directors: Grigoris Leontiades, Layla Atkinson
Animators: Nick Appleton, Jenny Lewis, Nickolai Vorontsov, Grigoris Leontiades
Compositors: Stephen Azancot, Rok Predin
Commissioner: Emily Tedrake