John Grant 'Boy From Michigan' by Casey & Ewan
David Knight - 29th Mar 2021
Ewan Jones Morris and Casey Raymond have been making videos for John Grant since his first solo album Queen Of Denmark came out more than a decade ago. It's been a remarkable collaboration, resulting in some of the weirdest, wackiest and darkly humourous videos ever made by a sensitive singer-songwriter from North America.
Something about Grant's deeply personal lyrics and mordant sense of humour brings out the best of a couple of Welshmen with a taste for the iconoclastic, irreverent and deeply absurd. Their latest, for the title track from his latest album Boy From Michigan, is fully in the tradition of the likes of Marz, Global Warming, and particularly, He's Got Your Mothers Hips, where Casey & Ewan recruited a small army of leftfield animation talent from across the globe to reinterpret John's performance in a variety of ways.
As with Mother's Hips, there are a variety of animation styles here, but more focussed on illustrating the coming-of-age tale in Grant's lyrics, about the boy living a sheltered suburban life, about to set out into the big, bad world.
It includes some wonderful graphic elements - from the Robert Williams's drag-racer-style opening animation, to nightmarish morphing, Punch & Judy-style puppetry, painted stock footage, animated paintings and more - created by Jones Morris and Raymond themselves, with Jenny Jokela, Marcos Sánchez and Peter Raymond.
David Knight - 29th Mar 2021
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Credits
Production/Creative
- Director
- Casey & Ewan
- Director
- Casey Raymond
- Director
- Ewan Jones Morris
Animation
- Animator
- Casey Raymond
- Animator
- Ewan Jones Morris
- Animator
- Jenny Jokela
- Animator
- Marcos Sánchez
Commission
- Label
- Bella Union
Misc
- Puppet Design
- Peter Raymond
Other credits
Director's Representation (Ewan Jones Morris)
Friends Electric
David Knight - 29th Mar 2021