Synopsis

A bizarre, brightly colored science-fiction odyssey unfolds across alien landscapes and cosmic portals. A small metamorphosing hero emerges into a surreal world before confronting a gigantic robot spacecraft attacking the planet with enormous sugar cubes. The journey moves through strange creatures, geometric environments and psychedelic transformations, building toward a frantic space battle. With its rapid visual changes synchronized to Birdy Nam Nam's electronic track, the video plays like a lost animated television adventure from another dimension, blending heroic fantasy, retro science fiction and deliberately disorienting imagery.

Factoids & Trivia

• The video was made for Birdy Nam Nam's "The Parachute Ending," a track from the 2009 album "Manual for Successful Rioting." The version used in the video was produced with Justice.

• Illustrator Will Sweeney had previously created artwork for Birdy Nam Nam. He developed the video's visual world with animator Steve Scott.

• The production drew inspiration from French science-fiction animation, particularly "La Planete Sauvage" and "Les Maitres du Temps," as well as the comics magazine "Metal Hurlant" and the cosmic artwork of Jack Kirby.

• The band gave the filmmakers unusually broad creative freedom and even re-edited the track to help the animation work more effectively.

• The animation was built around the music's changing sections. Backgrounds, characters and objects were timed to respond to the rhythm, with After Effects used extensively for compositing and beat-synchronized movement.

• The finished film contains 69 separate shots, some of them made from more than 20 individual animated elements.

• The project moved from storyboarding and animatics into animation and compositing in roughly six weeks, with the core animation completed in about four weeks.

• The video was produced by Not To Scale and was released in 2009.

• It appeared in the animation and art direction categories at the 2009 UK Music Video Awards.