Modest Mouse - The Whale Song - (2009) 6:05 (USA)

The indie rock band Modest Mouse is getting the royal treatment from Bent Image Lab's new director/partner Nando Costa. Just completed, the band's new music video is a dark and expressive piece of film-making. Heavily rooted in live-action, the impressive six-minute video includes intense moments of stop motion, visual effects, and motion graphics techniques, all brought to life within the studio's walls.

The visuals follow an artist who enters his personal sanctuary where he is presented with a hand-crafted drawing tool that assists him in materializing his mental impressions. Through drawing circular patterns, the machine discharges an endless web of yarn that guides him through his visual representations of his memories. The story progresses to reveal that he is divided between two worlds, one of dull reality and the second of warped memories. In the process of finding a way out of his consciousness, he is trapped between the two competing spaces, which eventually inflict lethal damage, acting as metaphors to self-destruction.

This lyrical and moving piece was conceived by Nando Costa working closely with lead singer/guitarist Isaac Brock to polish some of the film's intricacies. Featuring a seamless combination of live-action and stop motion that alternates between stage shots of Modest Mouse and a spiraling dream-like world of ever-shifting landscapes, Whale Song is a stunning representation of the combined capabilities of Nando and Bent. The variety and execution of the VFX portions of the video - from yarn reeling into complex patterns to a guitar that plays with no musician attached - strongly evoke the confused and surreal patterns of one's warped memories. Additional creative touches such as animated and intricate photographic collages and giant CG snails sliding across the band's stage - add variety and depth to the Bent world.

"This new video is the perfect showcase for the benefits of the collaboration between myself and Bent," noted Costa. "I typically wouldn't have created a film with this much live-action or stop motion, and Bent also wouldn't normally approach a project with such a strong motion graphics influence, which is what I have long specialized in. With such well integrated in-house teams, I can't imagine that there's a project out there that we couldn't pull off."

One of the challenges in Whale Song was to recreate the contours of an ever changing, disorienting and intriguing series of landscapes. Costa shot the majority of the piece with Bent's RED One cameras, which came in handy for their 4K capabilities when adding camera movement in post. In order to create the feeling that lead singer/guitarist Isaac Brock was being split up between two competing scenarios of pure reality and his imagination, for example, Costa mounted two of the RED cameras side by side on a custom plate, each with identical lenses set at an angle to simulate a stereoscopic effect.

In another instance, band members that appeared to be standing on the ground were actually hoisted aloft and secured to a fake ground plane, which meant that the stage floor was perpendicular to the ground. This situation intentionally restrained their flexibility and shifted the gravity, adding oddness to their movements.

Costa used a variety of frame rates, ranging from time-lapses at 6 frames per second, to 1000 fps shots from a Phantom camera to give the feeling of variety of speed in the character's memories. Blue screen stages were used extensively to place Isaac against the varying landscapes of mountains, dense forest valleys, and deserts. Bent's CG department was also responsible for creating significant portions of the video's landscapes and scenic elements.

During production, Nando and his team relied solely on a very detailed script containing technical and creative notes, live-action and animation guidelines, with specifications for composting and stop motion, which were all previously defined and polished by the director. "From what I've learned, producing a project at Bent is a wonderfully self-contained experience," noted Costa. "From building intricate props to figuring out complex CG shots, Bent has specialists in all fields. I'll walk over to the stage for live-action, then back to compositing, load the footage and work from there. It makes the whole process immeasurably easier, and creatively freeing."

"Seeing this video makes me feel good about what we've done here at Bent", stated Bent EP Ray Di Carlo". We set out to establish a creative clubhouse atmosphere where talented people like Nando could come to work. I've always admired directors who can hold a project's final vision in their minds eye and are able to let the talents around them do their respective jobs for a projects whose creative whole becomes more than the sum of it's parts, and that defines Nando. Seeing Nando come in, suddenly doing things that he wasn't used to doing, and still delivering at a high creative and technical level, means that David, Chel and I were able to create a place where everyone learns others' disciplines. That's rare. It's what we set out to do - what we originally wanted -- but when you see it work, it's amazing."

Music: Modest Mouse
Animation Studio: Bent Image Lab
Director: Nando Costa
Executive Producer: Ray Di Carlo
Senior Producer: Tsui Ling Toomer
Producer: Kara Place
Production Coordinator: Ryan Shanholtzer
Director of Photography: Bryce Fortner

Motion Control Operator: Jim Birkett
Gaffer: Adam Burr, Jim Birkett
Phantom HD Technician: Benji Brucker
Production Assistants: Andrew Ellmaker, Charlie James, Esa Di Carlo, Morgan Hobart, Samuel Moyle
Kinetic Sculptor: Ben Hopson
Set Designers: Nando Costa, Solomon Burbridge
Set & Prop Fabricators: Daniel Miller, Eric Urban, Greg Fosmire, Jamie Hanson, Jen Prokopowicz, Justin Warner, Kimi Kaplowitz, Marty Easterday, Sarah Hoopes, Solomon Burbridge,
Art Department Coordinator: Evan Stewart
Art Department Intern: Jessie Weitzel
Carpenter: Drew Lytle
Graphic Designer: Nando Costa
3D Lead: Fred Ruff
3D Artists: Eric Durante, Shirak Agresta
2D Animation & Compositing: Brian Kinkley, Brian Merrel, Jay Twenge, McKay Marshall, Nando Costa, Orland Nutt, Randy Wakerlin
Rotoscoping: Ben Blankenship, Randy Wakerlin
Compositing Intern: Dustin Dybevik
Stop-Motion Animation: Jen Prokopowicz, Marty Easterday
Still Photography: Jared Tarbell, Nando Costa
Processing: Barbarian Group
Behind The Scenes Photographer: Ben Blankenship
Special Thanks to: Isaac Brock, Darrin Wiener, Linn Olofsdotter