Dezeen Magazine

Mushroom-like figures travel through space in Planet Sizes music video

Music: animator Anna Ginsburg has designed a psychedelic cast of colourful helmeted characters for Scottish musician Steve Mason's Planet Sizes music video.

Planet Sizes by Steve Mason

The film opens with what appears to be a collection of brightly coloured hills, which reveal themselves to be figures that gradually emerge from the ground.

Planet Sizes by Steve Mason

The creatures were based on the artwork for Mason's Meet The Humans album, originally created by Olivia Bullock, which features a crowd of naked people wearing helmets.

Planet Sizes by Steve Mason

"I was drawn to Olivia's characters, with their humorous, imperfect bodies and mushroom-shaped heads," Ginsburg told Dezeen. "Steve wanted a central character to break away from a monotonous day to day existence and see the natural world anew with the wonderment of a child."

The video follows the characters as they trudge through backgrounds of flashing squares, ascend staircases, and find themselves encased in water-filled cubic tanks.

Planet Sizes by Steve Mason

"I saw the helmets as repressive, causing the characters heads to droop, looking downwards rather than upwards appreciating the beauty of the sky above," said Ginsberg.

Planet Sizes by Steve Mason

"The helmets start as a mass of mountains embedded in the ground. It is an initial surprise that there are in fact humans attached to them," she added.

Planet Sizes by Steve Mason

Visuals are set to match the "musical peaks and drips" of Mason's track, with the characters soaring or falling in time with the song.

Planet Sizes by Steve Mason

Eventually the figures are seen journeying through space, sailing past morphing geometric shapes and lines inspired by the work of artists Alexander Calder and Joan Miró.

Planet Sizes by Steve Mason

Ginsburg drew each frame by hand for the video, which took three months to finish. The animator hand-painted the gradients for each of the characters, before scanning them into the computer and working with a team of animators to complete the film.

Planet Sizes by Steve Mason

"I think music videos are most successful when they emphasise the arc of feeling present in the music," said Ginsburg. "If you are working on anything audio visual the key is to listen hard."

Planet Sizes by Steve Mason

Planet Sizes is taken from Steve Mason's Meet The Humans album, which will be released by Domino on 26 February 2016.