Dezeen Magazine

Stop-motion music video by Rafael Bonilla for Glass Animals' single Exxus

Dezeen Music Project: surreal animated creatures made out of plasticine inhabit this music video by Rafael Bonilla for upcoming British band Glass Animals. 

Exxus music video by Rafael Bonilla for Glass Animals

Bonilla sculpted the basic shapes of the creatures' bodies using wire and epoxy, onto which he applied layers of plasticine to create their final forms.

Exxus music video by Rafael Bonilla for Glass Animals

"The band wanted to make sure that the whole video was stop-motion," he told Dezeen. "I shot the animation one frame at a time. There's something like 6,500 individual photographs that make up the final product."

Exxus music video by Rafael Bonilla for Glass Animals

The video features a range of weird and wonderful shape-shifting creatures, including a fox that transforms into a mushroom, which Bonilla envisioned as a kind of surreal documentary.

Exxus music video by Rafael Bonilla for Glass Animals

"I had this story in my head about a dark, undiscovered forest somewhere that has all kinds of strange animals that inhabit it," he said. "I wanted to structure it like a nature documentary, where you catch glimpses of the different animals to get a sense of the environment as a whole."

Exxus music video by Rafael Bonilla for Glass Animals

Glass Animals are a quartet from Oxfordshire, England, signed to a new record label called Wolf Tone set up by producer Paul Epworth, who has worked with a diverse range of artists including Adele, Bloc Party and Azealia Banks.

They released their debut AA-side single Black Mambo / Exxus in 2013 and are set to release an EP in 2014.

Exxus music video by Rafael Bonilla for Glass Animals