Channel Frederator Blog

This installment of Channel Frederator Rewind takes us back to episode Bear-Ly Tuesday 117. We spoke to Eve Weinberg and Ryan Suffern who produced the bittersweet Music Video for Free Wheel.
Animal Conciertos and great animation. That’s really all I need. Oh and Bears with Ferris Wheels.

1) Where did you get the inspiration for the music video Freewheel? Did the music inspire you or did your images inspire the musician?
Ryan Suffern: The music video for “Freewheel” was actually the second video that we made for Duke Special, both of which featured tales of animated bears. These bears, drawn by Belfast artist Tim Millen, were originally found in the artwork accompanying the limited release of a vinyl box set of Duke Special’s debut record, Songs From The Deep Forest (the artwork was also later incorporated into the cd release after the Duke signed to V2 Records). Once I was solicited to consider making a music video for the Duke’s first single “Last Night I Nearly Died, But I Woke Up Just In Time,” I approached Tim about whether he would be interested in helping me bring his bear drawings to life. Neither of us had ever done any work in animation, but with Eve Weinberg’s help, we managed to re-invent the wheel as we went along.

2) Can you explain a bit of your process in creating Freewheel?
Eve Weinberg: The entire video was hand drawn by an Irish artist named Tim Millen. All of the color was actually water colored and scanned in by artists at a company called Sparks. The movement is a combination of AfterEffects and traditional cell animation. All in all, we had a team of at least 4 people working on the project at all times-drawing, painting, and animating.
RS: Our process was as such: I (in LA) wrote and shot listed the piece; Tim (in Belfast) then sketched the drawings, and in some places provided many cells of a particular sequence; Eve (in Chicago) would then animate the sequence; then we brought in a motion graphics company in London called Sparks, who dealt with the water coloring as well as adding camera moves and comping sketches together; I edited the rough quicktime files into our animatic, and then Eve took care of the online post production. It was quite the international cyber collaboration.

3) Who are some of your influences?
RS: For this video, I was definitely inspired by some of the charcoal sketch animations of William Kentridge. Why’ll the end result differs greatly from his work, it provided a jumping off point for me. I was also inspired to want to do something that felt like a classic children’s story book.

4) How long have you both been animating? How long did it take the 2 of you to complete Freewheel from start to finish?
EW: I was the head animator on this project. There was an artist named Tim Millen who drew EVERYTHING, scanned it, and sent it to a company called Sparks, where it was colored. Then between the guys at Sparks and myself, we animated. I have been animating for 4 years roughly. We had an extremely tight 8 week deadline for this project and could not have done it
without this kind of teamwork.
RS: Started in June, ‘06, with “Freewheel” being my second animated collaboration, and we had an 8 week deadline to finish the video (Dec. ‘06).

5) What are you both working on currently (together or seperate), and what is next for both of you? Any new music videos in the works?
EW: Ryan has a few music video projects in the works, one of which we hope to collaborate on soon! I am freelancing in motion graphics in LA currently with
hopes of starting up a similarly styled music video for an artist named William Elliot Whitmore.
RS: I’ve been concentrating on my screenwriting of late, but i am scheduled to shoot a music video in February for the artist, Ben Wise. It’ll be live action, but I’m hopeful to have Eve supply some of her specialties in post production.

Let’s take a look back at Bear-Ly Tuesday:

Thanks Eve & Ryan! We hope to see more of your great work on Channel Frederator!
-Jeaux Janovsky