Dezeen Magazine

Daniela Sherer animates "twist on a Western" for Tom Rosenthal music video

Dezeen Music Project: animator Daniela Sherer tells a Western-style tale through flowing graphics in this music video for British songwriter Tom Rosenthal.

Daniela Sherer animated music video for Tom Rosenthal

Royal College of Art graduate Daniela Sherer created the music video for Tom Rosenthal's As Luck Would Have It track, taken from his most recent album Who's That In The Fog? released last year.

Daniela Sherer animated music video for Tom Rosenthal

"I listened to the track and thought it was really haunting - I was totally charmed by it," Sherer told Dezeen. "It made me think of some journey in a vast open space, maybe a desert. So then I thought I'd try to do a twist on a genre I haven't tried animating yet: a Western."

Daniela Sherer animated music video for Tom Rosenthal

Sherer's graphics paint a picture of the American Old West, depicting guns, cattle and cacti that flow seamlessly between one another.

Daniela Sherer animated music video for Tom Rosenthal

At the start of the video, a cowboy shakes a magic eight ball to reveal the title of the song.

Daniela Sherer animated music video for Tom Rosenthal

A pregnant woman can be seen leaning against a shack, who later appears with her baby and then a child.

"At the time one of my best friends was expecting a baby, and she was on my mind quite a lot," said Sherer. "I think everything that's happening in your life when you make a piece influences it."

Daniela Sherer animated music video for Tom Rosenthal

Sherer explained that the meaning behind the narrative she tells is abstract and up for interpretation.

"In very broad strokes, the story is about a child's thoughts about his future or past, a premonition or a memory," she said. "In it, a gold prospector finds his treasure but dies alone, while a woman raises a 'golden boy'."

Daniela Sherer animated music video for Tom Rosenthal

"To me it's a story about journeys and different life goals. The question of what's worth pursuing," she added.

Splashes of colour amongst the dark background include blue drops of water and a ukelele, and pink blood from a cow that is shot.

Daniela Sherer animated music video for Tom Rosenthal

"I tend to use colour in a very minimalist way, just one or two, because the most important thing to me is the movement itself," Sherer explained. "I think of animation as magical because of the way it moves, and movement has an abstract emotional quality to me. It's a kind of dance. The style is just how I draw, I like using big shapes. I have a thing for shapes."

Daniela Sherer animated music video for Tom Rosenthal

Working with a 2D animation software called TVPaint over the space of a few months, Sherer drew the film using a Cintiq tablet. "It's basically traditional animation drawn digitally," she said.

Sherer met Rosenthal through a mutual friend and the pair have been collaborating on a number of projects ever since.

Daniela Sherer animated music video for Tom Rosenthal

We've also featured a video by Rosanna Wan, in which little girl drawn with crayons goes on a journey across the ocean, for Rosenthal's track I Like It When You're Gone from the same album.