Synopsis

Peter Gabriel performs in a surreal miniature world where bubbling clay landscapes swell into mountains, strange creatures emerge, and oversized versions of his face and body twist through the frame. Stop-motion figures, sculpted props, projected facial images, and rapidly changing textures turn the song's boastful fantasy into a playful visual spectacle. Gabriel appears as both performer and animated object, surrounded by imagery that inflates, distorts, and reshapes itself in time with the music, reflecting the song's satire of ambition, status, and self-importance.

Factoids & Trivia

• "Big Time" was the third single from Gabriel's 1986 album "So" and was released in the UK on March 23, 1987.

• Much of the video's distinctive look comes from stop-motion clay animation and David Daniels' strata-cut technique. In this process, layered clay is sliced frame by frame so that hidden shapes appear to move through the material.

• Daniels created the opening bubbling surface and the mountain-like terrain. He injected liquid clay through a syringe one frame at a time, then used mechanisms beneath the set to make the ground move with the rhythm.

• Daniels said the terrain work alone took four weeks. The wider production occupied 17 long working days at Peter Wallach's studio.

• Gabriel was on tour during production, so he could not spend the extended periods in the studio that the animation required. The crew therefore built several clay versions of his head and body.

• Timothy Young sculpted several models and props, including the large mouths used in the "Big Time" section. When Gabriel could not return to film those shots, Young put on Gabriel's costume and held the mouths himself while they were photographed frame by frame.

• The video earned two nominations at the 1987 MTV Video Music Awards: Best Concept Video and Best Special Effects in a Video.