Having partnered with David Jones for his last music video, former Silverchair frontman now solo artist Daniel Johns has unveiled his latest work of video wizardry for the track ‘Going On 16’, for which he partnered with nearly 40 talented local artists from Silverchair’s hometown of Newcastle.
As Triple J reports, the ‘Animate Daniel Johns’ competition featured a team of 37 animators, including students from the University of Newcastle and artists from NSW’s Hunter region, whose individual pieces were put together to form the ‘Going On 16’ video.
Each animator was given five seconds of footage to bring to life by hand and each sequence was then compiled together. The three-and-a-half minute video ultimately comprised an incredible 2,494 individual frames, with lots of eye-popping and colourful visuals.
“I’ve always enjoyed stuff that’s a bit trippy and surreal and there’s plenty of that happening in these animations; they’re the perfect visual accompaniment for a song like this,” Johns said of the project.
“Daniel was really open to the idea of a local collaboration and is so keen to see how animators will use their imagination to bring his track to life,” added Kelly Boulton, director of Guts Creative, the Newcastle-based brains behind ‘Animate Daniel Johns’.
Boulton, who shot the original clip with Johns and the help of internationally renowned animator Jane Shadbolt, is hoping this stunning collaborative project, which readers can view in full below, will “provide our local animation talent exposure on an international stage”.
One of the 37 animators who worked on the clip was also handpicked by Johns himself as the winner of the competition. Daniel Smith, whose segment comes in at the 1:50 mark has won a $1,000 cash prize, a yearly VIP pass to the local cinema, and an animation masterclass delivered by Kelly Boulton and Jane Shadbolt.
