Ghost Story

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"I had this huge callus," says Fran Healy . "You can still see a dent in my finger where the pen rested. "

The Travis frontman is proud of, she shows us the scars from The Battle , suffered his latest project of hand-drawing and animating a Music Video From Scratch .

It was an "act of desperation," he admits, after the coronavirus lockdown meant The Band couldn't film a Video for their new single, A Ghost.

After a few back-of-the-envelope calculations, he found out, he was able to pull 10 seconds of footage, all 16 hours, and produce a complete Video in 30 Days .

In The End , he produced 2,500 drawings on his iPad by tracing over the footage he'd filmed At Home , or based on The Internet - a technique known as "rotoscoping", the pop-up to recognize fans of A-ha's "Take On Me" Video .

in contrast to this clip, Travis, the Video is not interrupted by the racket clawhammers swings. Instead, it's a whimsical fantasy, in the Healy tours an abandoned town with a troop of friendly spirits.

"I have never done anything like this," admits The Singer , "and I don't know whether it will turn out, what is Good , bad, or whatever.

"But it was almost like a self-maintenance during the quarantine, because if you don't do Anything Else , you're watching The News and read Twitter, and that was, stressed me out massively. "

The Final Video to Premiere last week, and Healy, in collaboration with The Bbc , some of The Sketches , storyboards and concept art, which led to his first animated short film.

A ghostly concept

Recorded in London's RAK studios in February, A Ghost-addresses Healy the decision to return to music full-time after 14 years, while his son, clay.

"Travis has always been, but my main job was that of the father, i.e. the father I never had," says The Singer , whose parents divorced when he was young.

In The Song , Healy is confronted by The Ghost of his future self, who sings: "It is easier to live than to hide under your pillow, while your Life is up to you to pass". Suggested by The Image instantly, an idea for the Video .

"I started doodling on my iPad while we record," says Healy, "And I thought, 'What kind of spirit I would like to be in a Video ?'

"I had seen The Classic sheet Ghost, the used, the Casey Affleck film, A Ghost Story , and it looked really creepy, so I have some pictures of this, and I cut a picture of me jumping with my guitar, and I made a collage.

"the rest of The Video was back-of developed from there. I asked myself, 'How do I get to this point where I have to play me in an alley, with a band of ghosts?'"

Back To the drawing Board

In this stage, Healy was still filming, in the planning, the Video on the situation with the rest of The Band .

The First treatment saw him singing in a bathroom mirror, where his reflection was a Ghost; while a sequence-based, where the camera zooms out of a car, on a ladder, through a window and into the screaming mouth of One of the parents ends.

"Then, when I started drawing, I realized, 'this is going to take years,'" laughs Healy. "So I just had to make it, as I went along. "

It sounds like an approach that would be Pixar sign, but Healy felt in this semi-improvisatory style.

"Animation is a glacial process," he explains. "Everything you do is drawing 80 pictures that look pretty much exactly the same, So There is plenty of time to Think - and if I had a Good idea, I would stop what I was doing and draw a little storyboard to come back later. "

Paint the sunset

This recording, which is displayed at The End of The First chorus, encapsulates The Song 's Central message, as Fran and his mind, like The Sun , and the Video transitions to The Night -time.

"He speaks to me and he says:" Come on buddy, you know, pull out your finger. You have about 40 Years left. So you can either sit in your house and do nothing, or you can pull out your finger and go again. '"

time-saving 'polaroids'

in The Second verse Healy at The Bar looks to sit (keck renamed the "Frannies"), as he reflects on the most important thing in Life , decisive Moments - the birth, the death, the love and the marriage.

Each of them is illustrated by a "polaroid" snapshot, which saves as a storyboard notes, "time and looks cool".

"this sequence was empty, almost the entire Video ," admits The Singer , "so that the quality of the drawing jumps to that point, because, in The End , I would get a lot better. "

Fun fact: The ghosts populate the snapshots were played by Healy's son.

Beware The Crow

Apart from Healy, the only other character with a speaking role in the Video is a Black Crow provides backing vocals in The Second verse.

It is an allusion to The Raven , which appears in Frank Capra 's It's A Wonderful Life - a Healy' s favorite movies - and the drawing is based on "a plastic crow I bought in a hardware store" in his recording studio, since 2011 (there are even guest appearances in previous Travis Video ).

Originally it was not intended to speak, but Healy is concerned about leaving a static setting on the screen for two seconds, so he animated The Beak .

"That is the reason why this is such a beautiful process: do you have an idea, draw for seven hours, And Then you see it and it's like, 'Wow, it's exactly what I thought. '"

the detection of The Stunt -car -

Frightened by his visions for The Future , Healy, jumps into a car and accelerated into The Night , to make a transformative journey through New York 's Second Street Tunnel (another cinematic reference, This Time to Blade Runner ).

the speed and the movement of the right, "I rotoscoped some footage of the 1970s advertisement for my current car is a Mercedes 300D and copy I have says it frame-by-frame," Healy.

The Sequence But also required a stunt for some creative Googling.

"I needed to jump a car, so I went on YouTube and I searched forever until I thought," Wait a minute, "and I typed jump in" Dukes Of Hazzard car'.

"And there's this Video that has about an hour and 15 Minutes of stunts from the Dukes Of Hazzard, so I went through every single car to jump, until I found the perfect, about three-quarters of The Way . "

Everything is suddenly real

For the last chorus, the cuts of Video to a real-Life performance, with Chili, accompanied by a band, the (social distance) ghosts.

"That was a Good moment, because it saved me a week," laughs The Singer . But how much of the Video , the result was a happy accident.

"in the past, in The Process , I had a scene where I was walking along next to a wall and as I was tracing over The Top of the scene there is a moment where it flashes and it transitions to the live recordings. And I thought, 'Oh God, this is really cool. Maybe I can the idea that the whole idea began to shoot with me, and the spirits in an alley. "

The film also brought The Story of A spirit to a touching conclusion.

Healy, is called the decision "a power word" and re-commit to was Travis, with his son, telling him, "Dad , I'm Good - I know, you have not pushed as hard as she could, but I really want you to do, The Band now".

But instead of you apart, so that the Video actually strengthened their bond.

Not only the sound was the stand-in ghost for most of the shots, but he filmed the live-action sequence on its drones-camera, which meant he could project the Material in a school Video .

"He filed it and he got a Good grade!", Healy says.

Who says you could not combine, a band, an attentive father?

A Ghost is there. Travis ' new album, 10 Songs, which will be released in October.

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Source of news: bbc.com