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Claymation + Poltergeist = New Middle Distance Runner Video


I know I just posted a video on Friday, but this one was too good to leave any later. Besides, who DOESN'T love claymation? Or "stop-motion animation using clay" as it's known in these politically correct days. The video's director, Maxwell Sorensen, has this to say:

When I met with MDR to conceive a music video project they had few preconditions, except that they were interested in traditional stop motion animation technique and that they all wanted to die a gruesome death. As a huge fan of Frank Zappa’s animator/collaborator Bruce Bickford (Babysnakes, Amazing Mr. Bickford) I suggested clay. It’s an incredibly flexible medium, especially for portraying carnage and the supernatural. It turned out the guys in the band were already aficionados of clay based stop motion animation, so they loved the idea. In a three hour brainstorming session each member designed his own death, and then I outlined the logistics of photographing and animating each death. Rather than following the traditional rock’n’roll cliché where the band destroys their instruments, we decided to turn the tables and have the instruments destroy them by way of a demonic poltergeist.

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