David Wilson – Moray McLaren ‘We Got Time’

Posted by Michelle Higa Fox

davidwilson_wegottime

All of the animations seen in David Wilson’s music video for Moray McLaren’s ‘We Got Time‘ were created in camera. Repeat: in camera. No CG, no compositing animation loops onto footage – just taking advantage of the way film and persistence of vision works.

I’m a sucker for pre-cinema optical toys – kinetoscopes, zoetropes, magic lanterns, and the praxinoscopes featured in ‘We Got Time.’ Wilson doesn’t just rely on the charm of the medium though. Using the mechanism of rotation and looping as a starting point, he’s able to create a journey using simple but hypnotic animations that tie into the idea of life/death cycles. That may sound crazy, but just watch – things start to get really trippy around 2:30.

Also- check out the fantastic making-of video that gets deep into rpm and fps nerdiness, and the illustrated discs created by David Wilson.

Director and Animator – David Wilson
Executive Producer – Bart Yates
Producer – James Bretton
Production Company: Blinkink

Director of Photography – Tim Green
Production Manager – Ellie Britton
Art Direction – Will Randall and Hattie Newman
1st Assistant Director – Jerome Franc

RED Camera Operator – Nick Allsop and Jeff Brown

Motion Control Operator – Dennis Henry
Focus Puller – Jon Mitchell
Gaffer – Robin Brigham
Spark/Gaffer – Neil Blackman
Spark – Paul Allen

Actors- Will Harper and Gabriel Aronson

Editor – Mark Aarons
Post Production – The Mill
Colourist – James Bamford
Flame Artist – tbc
Producer – Matt Williams

Motion Control – MC2 Motion Control
Additional Camera Equipment – Take2Films
Lighting Equipment – Panalux Ltd

Making Of –
Director, Editor and Animator – Tom Kingsley
Onsite Shoot Footage, and Photography – Tim Keeling

Website Design – Mark Pavey

Additional thanks to…
Blink Productions, Malcolm Ryan Studios, TVC, Stonehouse Conseillers, Stephen Venning, Dave Bullivant, Holly Wales, Nick and Jane Wilson, Claire Jones, OneInThree, Simon Willows, Emerald Dangerfield, Sara Colding, Chris Lee, Bex Hobson, Lauren Jones, Clare Wilson, James Hobson, Ben Riley, Toby Jury Morgan, and Pete Dungey.

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12 Comments

martz

whaaaaaat?!?! that was the best thing i have seen in a long time.

brandj

This is really amazing. Beautiful animation and a wonderful “simple” idea to get the technique. Really great work.

I think there are subtle wipes between the various scenes, right?

higa

yes, cuts and wipes are used (like in the growing sequence). there are images of the discs themselves on david wilson’s site, which is down at the moment, but i’ll re-post links once it’s live again.

also- there’s some pretty cool videos of a disc in production at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0QWPExrm_Q and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_g1e5AS4A0

davidwilsoncreative

The DavidWilsonCreative.com website’s now back up. I had a “download limit” problem.
Yep, we wiped or cut between all of the different record labels in order to link between them, but that’s all.

tknott

truly wonderful – thanks for posting

AbstractHat

The really careful attention to the set up and lighting and camera movements, was just lovely. It really had an organic and subtly textured feel to it. Plus, when the lights come on in the middle… that’s just purely beautiful… yet simple. It all comes down to simplicity perfected.

Electric Beige

Great idea.
Well executed.
Simple.

theprime

This is hot fire. Pyramid disco party!

invertebrae

such an excellent tecnhique! i was transfixed as the whole thing became established.

if i have one criticism, it would be that i wished you might have used this technique to deliver a narrative more clearly, rather than staying caught in its own loop so to speak. the POV changes you did were nice, but i didn’t find them evolving the story, just changing the vantage point.

i say that only because this technique was very very effective in grabbing our attention, and could easily have become a platform to tell something a LITTLE bit deeper.

but simple and clean, effective and crafty, and the illustrations themselves were also very well done.

…ryan

ochyming

Crafty (intelligent) and beautiful!

movecraft

Last year: Stop motion is the new CG.

This Year: In-Camera is the new compositing.

Black is the new Black.

c

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