El Caballero de la Triste Figura is an Animated Music Video from Primitive Reason’s Pictures in the Wall Album which was released including a book by the same name. Conceptually it picks up where Had I the Courage left off, using simple abstract line work following a simple abstract story line that tells of transformation and illumination.
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In 2003 during a 3 month trip to Japan I decided to begin my adventures in making animations, and I had the perfect excuses for it: A song that needed a music video, time on my hands, and the overwhelming urge to finally put out something that had been brewing within for too many years.
When I was a little boy, my brother, sister and I would spend Saturday and Sunday early mornings glued to the television set watching Eastern European Stop motion flicks and Russian clay animation masterpieces, and thus the seed was planted. The rudimentary techniques available in those times have always fascinated me, and later in life, when I began to enjoy doodling and sketching abstract pictures on paper, I knew that someday I must try to teach myself to animate. Finally the opportunity presented itself and I took it.
After planning the simple storyline I began to sketch and find my influences. After creating the characters, scanning them and turning them into vectors I began to create the scenes, using flash in a very archaic way to animate the characters and plant the scenes. I wanted to keep the look and feel as rudimentary and un-evolved as possible, without much ‘realness’ to it, in keeping with the story and my lack of technical prowess as a first-timer. Here are some of the sketches I used:
The Storyline:
In a orderly world of peace and beauty, a thunderstorm gives birth to a being made of rocks by way of a powerful lightning sent down by the Thunder beings into the forest. The Rock-being wanders through the forest gazing at this new world and encounters a little bird and a being called Ponpoko – a walking bird of sorts. They explain to him that his beating heart is the seed animated him and gave him this new life, and that through it he would be illuminated. The Rock-being understands his first lesson and continues his journey through the new world before him only to be hit by lightning once again and see his heart fall to the ground, then growing into a powerful vine that reaches far into the world of the spirits above. Wu-man, a spirit being of high degree descends to earth on the vine to explain to Rock-being that he is to be his third-eye, his guiding spirit. The vine then retracts into seed-form and turns into a heart once again, returning to Rock-being’s chest once again.
Rock-being travels the world, and as he is crossing a desert he encounters Minpoki, a magical animal, who gives him his second lesson, explaining to him that in this world of beauty, pain, death, greed and injustice also must exist. Rock-being understands once again and continues to travel the world, finally finding a home in the mountains to rest. There he is visited by a Thunder being that emerges from the fire and tells him that there are two roads in life, the road of harmony and the road of chaos, and that he must choose to follow one of the two; becoming either a pale ghost or a giant soul.
Rock-being chooses the Way of Harmony, to live according to the lessons and rules provided by nature and follow the natural order of things, making his way to an advanced village where like-minded beings live. Finally his evolution comes full circle and he becomes a giant of a soul, departing this material world of appearances and illusions and heading to the world of spirits above to his final resting home.
[pullquote]May the pale ghost never grow to full height, and the giant rise to bask in the sunlight.[/pullquote]
The Lyrics:
This mission: your volition
this ambition: your volition
this friction: your volition
your volition
Had I the courage to call you by your true name
Had I the courage to call you by your true name
Plumed serpent slithers and slides slow
In this slippery mind this kind I know
And in mine eye I have kind of known, kind of known
Had I the courage to call you by your true name
Had I the courage to call you by your true name
Too much confusion with this here kind; Too much illusion
Too much delusion in this here mind. Why, I know
Illusion; this illusion, disillusion.
Somehow the raindrops always fall in rhythm
Had I the courage to call you by your true name
Had I the courage to call you by your true name
Had I the courage to call you by your true name
I’d not mind the rain, I;
I’d not mind the change
Whatever I’d find strange I’d name
Your volition, your volition, your volition.
This mission: your volition
this ambition: your volition
this friction: your volition
your volition
And I sit in the rain, and I’m wondering…
And I sit in the rain and I’m wondering
Why the birds don’t sing in this night
Why the kids don’t play in this night
Why the sun don’t shine
Had I the choice to call you; I’m wondering…
Would I see you? I’m wondering
Would I peel in the thundering sight?
If I’d feel you wandering.
This rock I stand on rolls
forever I walk but to where I don’t know,
I don’t know why the kid don’t play in this night
Why the sun don’t shine for me
Under the night I roam, and stroll
Within the light I’ll roam, it’s true
This mission: your volition
this ambition: your volition
this friction: your volition
your volition
Take these two steps on this beach at sunset
At unease with the rest
And my knees at unrest
And my head at unrest
I don’t care about the best
This duress is a test
I could do with a rest now
Let my mind relax
Let my soul come back
Let me know I passed with the courage
This mission: your volition
this ambition: your volition
this friction: your volition
your volition
Your volition is the faith that drives me on and on…
The Video:
[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZNSGbCXb7E&feature=player_profilepage' width=480 height=360]
