The Hunter

I have spent the last few months working on an animated music video for my brother's song 'The Hunter'. The music video premiered on the TV show Native Affairs on Maori TV, alongside an interview with myself and my brother. The full music video is now available to watch on Vimeo (see below). I thought it might be useful to detail the working process behind the video itself.

  “I don't have a narrative in mind, but the song is about the relentless search for happiness.” Tama Waipara

The original impetus for my chosen treatment came from a desire to reference in some way the universe-style cover image I designed for Tama’s album Fill Up The Silence, where the track The Hunter comes from. On that project, I used Adobe After Effects (a compositing and animation program) to build a 3D-space background. Therefore, the night-sky and its stars as theme seemed appropriate. Through word-image association I saw a chance to pay homage to the constellations of Orion the Hunter and its companion Canis Major, but in a remixed Maori context, rather than the classical one – recasting these constellations as proto-characters, as a sort of an every-man and every-companion, albeit with Maori overtones. 

The notion of sampling such ideas via my specific viewpoint (which includes a Maori outlook), can be viewed as cultural remix - a blending of my Western and Indigenous heritage. Remix as a creative methodology was employed in my Honours and just completed Masters projects. This naturally led to a re-use of ideas, because I was searching through some old diaries and came across sketches (from 2008) which seemed to fit the theme of the video - as did a sketch for an unused idea that was proposed for a motion graphic opening title sequence back in 2010, but never got used. The motion graphic idea was based on the use of tukutuku patterns set inside holographic road-signs. The sketches were of a dog face that had been designed to conform to the style of a carved pou (post), and an accompanying tekoteko face. 

Also, because Maori have a very specific cosmology & astronomical system associated with the stars (which I spent some years researching), I cast the main protagonist as a proto-polynesian Hunter, devoid of many of the most obvious Maori stylings e.g. tamoko (facial tattoos), taonga (jewellery), weaponry such as taiaha, mere, patu, tewhatewha, etc., but still retaining some elements such as the top section of a rain cape, bird spear, tatua (belt), and piupiu (albeit simplified for animation purposes into a single piece). 

Tama even thought this timeless look might indicate some future world, rather than the past. This idea of his proved to be useful in rethinking some aspects of the video, but also useful in recasting constellations inside this idea of cultural remix. Perhaps if the story takes place in the future, it’s also no longer on Earth. 

A kuri or Polynesian dog is cast as a secondary character. This type of dog, which had a very specific and quite distinct look, is now extinct in NZ, though a model exists in the Te Papa Museum which I used for reference. Interestingly, I saw some dogs with similar characteristics on a recent trip to Bali;  I’m sure they would have common ancestry with the kuri.

From listening to the lyrics I couldn’t but help see the song in terms of a story, one that included all the various ideas I wanted to use. Tama describes the song as being: “...originally from the Sir Plus album demos and then the Hunter section was added in New York when the feel of the song changed. Also the general intention of the song changed slightly with lyrics, from defeated to empowered and hopeful...” “Even though the universal theme is love throughout and the pursuit of it, I think the more general theme is happiness and the ‘the hunt’ for it.” So from this initial idea, alongside the specific lyrics and the song’s driving rhythm, a quest-style narrative emerged.

Storyboards for The Hunter. Copyright Zak Waipara 2014

In brief, the two protagonists, a young boy and a kuri, are seen at different times hunting. It isn’t clear immediately what they are hunting for, but it is implied for food, shelter, etc. They pursue these things alone, with the boy moving right to left, and the dog left to right. At the end of the story they meet each other, and it is shown that ‘company’, someone to share life’s travails with, holds promise in the ongoing quest for ‘happiness’. 

The protagonists are rendered in a 2D illustrative style, drawn from a blend of Maori and anime influences, although the anime visual style tends to reduce the ethnic look of characters, and I wanted to retain it. The backgrounds are generally flat, though textured, mottled and coloured to suggest environment, and lit using virtual lights to simulate the time of day, again using a 3D environment to stand in for a 2D animated world. This is in order to provide a somewhat reduced, but not entirely blank canvas for the introduction of kinetic typography to be read against. Kinetic type works best when placed against clean backgrounds. Where this project differs from pure kinetic typography is in the inclusion of animated characters as narrative elements. 

This project was particularly difficult because it was a hybrid form, part animated story, part kinetic type motion graphic, which are not usually combined, and I had to try and find some middle ground between the two forms. The fonts (apart from the album typefaces), a main component of any kinetic type project, were sourced from one main font designer. Motion graphics seem a natural vehicle to work with non-literal elements, therefore this project provided a chance to include Maori motifs; the constellations based on Maori Rock Art design, the tukutuku patterns reimagined as 8-bit style holograms, and kowhaiwhai patterns flowing out into the universe. 

Illumination is a key feature throughout the animation - the narrative begins in twilight, we then see simulated firelight, glow-worm caves, fireflies, the starry heavens, a satellite (originally intended to be a comet), and finally sunrise. This illumination mirrors the journey toward understanding and warmth. The typography takes on the style of the light-sources, such as star constellations. Indeed, some of Tama’s early ideas included “UV light and puppet/dancers.” In this vein, the animated figures include detailed walk-cycles that are synched to the beat and rhythm of the music. Tama also talked about the use of light-streaks at the point that video moves up into the night sky. 

Working within remix often engenders a sense of fun, and the upbeat track denotes a playful quality that Tama was keen to emphasise. Taken as a whole, the various integrated ideas create an idiosyncratic look that matches the unique song’s inspiration. I tended to follow the rhythm and the vocals to set the pace and narrative, but one crucial scene needed reworking (based on Tama’s feedback), to better capture the flavour of new musical instrumentation that begins to make itself apparent. The solution was to have new visual elements that represented the introduction of these musical addtions, and Van Gogh’s Starry Starry Night served as a sort of inspiration, so these forms took on the appearance of digital swirls and fireworks. 

I am also interested in narrative that opts for different ways to solve story conflict, rather than just physical supremacy, so the plot’s peaceful conclusion has been designed around this idea. The final appearance of a new character, a pukeko, provides a moment of bathos, which is used to punctuate the whole piece. This notion of using bathos seems to be a natural and recurring theme for me, as I used it in the first Rock of Ages prologue.

Finally, before the premiere, a series of teaser videos were made, that repurposed the six tukutuku holograms as stand-in glyphs for the six letters used in the two words: The Hunter. He mihi mahana ki NZ on Air mo te tautoko ki te kaupapa nei!