Paolo Nutini’s Pencil Full Of Lead by Corin Hardy

A clay, stop-animated Paolo Nutini is brilliantly integrated into the real world in Corin Hardy's hugely entertaining, beautifully-made new video for Paolo, created with the help of animators who worked on Fantastic Mr Fox.

Big trouble is just around the corner for our malleable chap, on account of his Stone Age attitude towards the girls in the TV studio. But he ends up like putty in their hands...

Corin Hardy on making the video for Paolo Nutini's Pencil Full Of Lead

"My aim with this video was to set up a situation where a clay Paolo would live in a real world and behave just like a real person. Once the viewer has accepted that, I then wanted to break the rules I had devised for myself and see what goes on when a clay Paolo just pushes it a bit too far.

"I got very lucky with the animators. Fantastic Mr Fox had just wrapped and the lead animator Mark Waring, and Andy Gent - who built all the puppets for the film - were both available and agreed to do the video.

"It was shot in a TV studio previously graced by Gloria Hunniford' chat show, and somehow this felt strangely fitting. We shot each take in two versions, one with a stand-in Paolo dancer and then one without. The animation was matched to the stand-in wherever possible and this helped us get the very real movement into the clay Paolo that I wanted.

"The animation schedule was brutal. We had three weeks to animate and I pretty much moved into Clapham Rd Studios. Due to the animation needing to be composited into live action, it had to be 25 frames a second which gives the movement a beautiful rich feel, but is really tough work and there are no short cuts.

"The post happened as we went along, and it was inspiring to see the shots come back 24 hours later bedded into the film and actually see the laborious work coming to life."

Watch 'Paolo Nutini’s Pencil Full Of Lead by Corin Hardy' here