01-19 Famously inspired by Art of Noise’s Close to Jukebox. 1994 short film. How did you get started in moving image? 1988 and they were a regular monthly-ish commission the Edit promo, Wrake has been consumed by Employing a montage of Xeroxed I started experimenting with animation while studying until they stopped using illustrators in about 2000. images, paintings and found sound, run wrake animation linked to musical structures ever since. Jukebox is a personal journey Graphic Design at Chelsea School of Art in the second I was already animating at this point and one of the He has an explosive imagination and he has through fragmented experiences. half of the Eighties. Initially using a Super8 camera best things about doing them was it was a chance The Meathead –‘a metaphor for used this in a deliberate non-linear and anti- fear’ –makes his first appearance. with macro lens and stop-frame ability, filming artwork to concentrate on one image rather than the piles narrative way for years, preferring to produce created from printers off-cut pads and marker pens required for animation, plus free records! 01-16 overleaf his ideas as visual samples with cut and paste Rabbit. Short film. A selection of stuck aon the wall with Blu-Tack. This developed into loops. His method of production has been very 1950s educational stickers, found painted and collaged artwork when I learnt about the You have spent many years visualising music in in a provincial junkshop twenty instinctual and freeform, challenging the need for years ago, provide the ingredients tools of the trade at RCA. your career – how important is music to you and conventional storytelling by replacing it with visual for this adult fairytale. When a boy your work? and girl find an idol in the stomach experimentation influenced by Dada and Pop Art. of a rabbit, its magical abilities Where did your names Run and your production It was the reason I started animating. I was making Despite this, Wrake’s distinctive style has been very lead to riches, but for how long? company Sclah originate? mixed media collages and listening to music endlessly. An Animate! Scheme commission, much in demand – whether it is delivering visuals BAFTA nominee, and multi-award The name Run is a nickname picked up whilst wicket- A visiting lecturer on my foundation course showed us for landmark live concerts for U2, or commercial winner. keeping very badly in a game of cricket whilst at the video for ‘Close to the Edit’ by Art of Noise, and the projects, or his long running relationship with Howie primary school in Sussex, circa 1974. It was for the tightly synced juxtaposition of beats and cut and paste B, as only he could. When he finally came to making early years Runnee, which obviously had the requisite images set off a little explosion in my head. Rabbit, a more traditional story-driven short, he snigger factor. Sclah was a word that a bunch of unleashed a masterful quirky award-winner that friends and myself used to describe the feeling that Howie B’s Music with Babies prompted a long running was a liberation, and which points to a whole new followed a particularly extended night out. See also; creative relationship [he even did the sound on your world of possibilities for his work. Bleh, Fleh and various others that I can’t remember. latest film Rabbit]. Can you talk us through this? I first worked with Howie’s music on a promotional You produced many illustrations for NME over a film for the release of his album ‘Music For Babies’ long period, did you enjoy that time and how did it fit in 1996. This came about after a copy of ‘Jukebox’ into the motion work? found its way to him through his brother in law. The The NME illustrations were great. The brief was to process of making this, and its subsequent reception, illustrate the artist in question, using the name of was a real buzz and it lead to a string of promos and their album being reviewed as a theme. It started in record sleeves, often one reflecting the other. These 01 0304 12 03 05 11 13 02 14 07 17 06 08 16 18 09 10 15 19 01 02 09 10 03 04 11 12 05 06 13 14 07 08 15 16 01-03 04-05 were mostly for the tracks released from ‘Turn The A lot of your work has it’s own non-linear and visual Music For Babies. Howie B music Butt Meat. Howie B music video and You have worked across titles, live visuals, music open to having no process, and being open to going Dark Off’, including the artwork for the album itself. looping narrative structures – can you explain a bit video. A seminal work with long- another appearance for Meathead. promos, to your own shorts. Is the approach to all off on tangents. It’s like the difference between using term musical collaborator and There were also more experimental pieces for tracks about your ideas on storytelling? Glaswegian ambient producer, 06-07 these forms similar? Google and a pile of books. Google will give you pages from the LP ‘Snatch’, released through Howie’s own A piece of instrumental music has a narrative that is Howie B. Take Your Partner By The Hand. What determines the enjoyment of a project for me is of images of exactly what you ask for. While looking Howie B music video. label, Pussyfoot Records and most recently the music not a story, but keeps us listening in a similar way that the freedom I have in creating the work, and to some for those images in a book, you will stumble across on the soundtrack of ‘Rabbit’. We share a belief in the characters and plot do in a feature. Most of my work 08-15 extent the time that I have to do it. Though a deadline, seemingly unrelated images that can often feed into the Album review illustrations for NME. importance of creative freedom, and the love of a has a musical soundtrack and I tried to create the whilst sometimes seeming a burden, is essential. Most idea, or even change its direction. Give me the books good loop. animation with a similar flowing and evolving rhythm. jobs begin the same, as pitches and you can be as every time. The discipline that a story requires was what always loose as you want. The differences tend to happen Why is Howie so good for you to work with? put me off the more traditional story based films, I once a pitch is won, and various people start to You have worked in hand drawn, painting onto film, Most importantly, he would never try to influence what I preferred the freedom to go visually, anywhere, at any manipulate your ideas, and the process becomes more using scalpels cutting and pasting – getting your wanted to do, and made sure that the record company stage of the production, and the musical approach of a chore as the decision making is taken out of your hands dirty – how different for you is it now in did the same. For ‘Music for Babies’ for example, he allowed this. hands. As a result, for me it is the personal projects today’s after effects driven world of motion? presented me with a copy of the album and said that I More recently, namely with ‘Rabbit’, I have used that are most enjoyable, and as a result, are the most After Effects is such a perfect medium for me, as it could choose any track, or tracks, and cut them up and a more traditional approach, a process that I found interesting pieces of work I think. There are exceptions allows for the slightly rough round the edges look that I rearrange them if I felt that it would help the finished very satisfying, and really enjoyed the challenge of to this of course, as the projects with Howie B prove, favour, with all the benefits of desktop animation. I still film, which was exceptional really. Bono once described telling a story, from writing and storyboarding through but generally “Too many cooks spoil the broth” applies. create the drawn animation in my work in the traditional him as “light bulb of a man”, and that positive energy to working with a sound designer and musician, adding way, using punched paper and a peg-bar, though this was always there encouraging the work process. audio to the completed animation. This opens up the You have gone through the transitions of graphic now scanned and coloured digitally. This process of possibilities for longer films, which is where I want to designer to animator and then traditional animation working with PhotoShop and After Effects allows the Your work has a very distinctive aesthetic that is go next, adding dialogue into the mix. to computer animation – how has this affected digital creation of animation retaining the personality unmistakably yours – where does your influences your work? of traditional techniques. Having said that, I often miss and/or points of reference come from? Can you outline your method of creating the I don’t see myself as going through this progression. I the absence of complete physical artwork, and only Pretty random really: early influences were the Dada animation you produce? still produce Illustration, Graphics alongside animation, time will tell how reliant computers are at storing media, movement, particularly the collages of Kurt Schwitters Depends on the project really, but generally first base and still utilise old school techniques alongside more but overall the lack of spray mount in my lungs, and and John Heartfield, Graphics and packaging from the is writing in the sketchbook, preferably after a few recent technological developments.