The Big Balloon to the Moon (Animated Music Video)
The Big Balloon to the Moon is the official, 13 x award winner animated music video created by Anders Sundstedt aka Sundstedt Animation for Karl Baudoin song “The Big Balloon to the Moon”.
Karl Baudoin – The Big Balloon to the Moon (Official Music Video)
This is our latest handcrafted 2D animated music video. ‘The Big Balloon to the Moon’ is the title track for his upcoming album with the same name. Sundstedt Animation is a multi award-winning independent 2D/2.5D animation studio in Scotland, UK, creating unique, 100% custom made and original handcrafted animations for international artists. Having an animated music video in mind for this song, Karl reached out to Anders Sundstedt directly to make the official music video for the new song.
Credits
Lyrics & Music: Karl Baudoin
Director: Anders Sundstedt
Illustration: Anders Sundstedt
Animation: Anders Sundstedt
Character Design: Anders Sundstedt
Storyboard: Anders Sundstedt
VFX & Editing: Anders Sundstedt
Animation Studio: Sundstedt Animation
Category: Animated Music Video
Style: 2D/2.5D Animation
Length: 04:05
Testimonial
“For my latest release The Big Balloon to the Moon, I always had in mind an animated music video so I shopped around the internet for quite a while and then I found Anders Sundstedt. Here was an artist who had his own voice, his own unique style and it seemed to fit perfectly with the imagery I had in mind for my music. He immediately understood the visual elements that would do the trick and I believe he was the only one to be able to instill the poetry I was looking for. Anders is a rare and very sensitive artist who pays attention to every tiny detail while delivering a profound work that appears simple on the surface. And that is exactly what I try to do with my music. So, maybe it’s not surprising after all that we were selected in eight festivals and won four in a matter of weeks. More to come? Thank you Anders, you did much more than expected and in such an elegant way.”
Singer-Songwriter
New Caledonia
Are you an artist, musician, producer, or agent interested in a handcrafted, custom made, professional animated music video or lyric video for your song? If so, please do get in touch to discuss your project today. You can use the contact form or the email address at the top of the website page. Please do provide details.
The resulting video is a handcrafted 4 minute 6 seconds 2D animated film. This animated music video has been praised by the artist and selected by thirteen film festivals and won four within two weeks. Anders Sundstedt focus is on the creation of quality, unique animated music videos. You can read more about this official music video below and get in touch to make your next music video.
The Challenge
We discussed directly with Karl Baudoin about this music video, the song lyrics and suggestions. Anders Sundstedt then first came up with a detailed storyboard for the video based on the song lyrics, with one thumbnail sketch of each of the 9 separate scenes, then coming up with the visual style, design, illustrations, backgrounds artwork, character design, animation, coloring, color grading, props, visual effects and editing.
Working with Karl was a a truly great experience. The song is quite long (4 min 6 seconds) and with the the 9 separate scenes we suggested as the storyline, the timings for each shot had to be down to seconds. We planned the compositing and the basic layout of each scene, consistent in styling, to have a natural transition between each shot. Since some of the last scenes in the video are much darker (because they are in space and on the moon), we found that fading to white or black transitions worked best between the scenes, instead of straight cuts the we usually have in other projects.
The Solution
The first stage included deciding on the visual style, look, colors, background artwork, scenery, and character designs. The main characters are an astronaut and his girlfriend back on earth, directly based on song lyrics ‘smooth red lips’. We went with a 2D/2.5D cut-out animation style and looked at the storyboard and figured out what design and artwork would work best for this music video as it is mainly taking place in the universe, far away from earth for the majority of the animation.
Some rough ideas was discussed during initial emails at the start of the project. We provided links to different visual examples from our own animation portfolio of previous music video, as a reference, to help decide on the videos visual style, complexity and level of detail.
Once the style was finialized, we started working on the original background/foreground artwork. A lot of time was spent on creating and perfecting the scenes background/foreground scenery, objects, props, lighting, coloring, color grading, before any animation work was started. Many original handcrafted bagkrounds with layers had to be illustrated, composited and prepared for “3D” camera movement (multi-plane), and compositing each scene in 2.5D, for getting a parallax effect and “3D” effect.
We then planned and created a few important sequences of frame-by-frame animation of the artist character, like for example when climbing the balloon ladder, playing the bass and holding up and gently gripping a flower with his hand. We frequently do more rig-based 2D animation than purely frame-by-frame animation, but a few scenes were very complex and was better suited by frame-by-frame animation, such has the hand in scene one and bass playing character in scene nine.
As mentioned, we planned out the shots in some detail during the storyboarding. Most scenes include the big balloon and basket. We can see that there is a character in the basket, but far away. Before the last three scenes, the scenes are strong colours, while on the moon it is darker with a black sky. Of course, traveling to the moon in a big hot air balloon is not physically possible (as far as we know), so it’s not a realistic storyline.
Artwork & Illustration
All artwork and animations including characters, props, backgrounds and grading was created by Anders Sundstedt. The style of the animation is colorful and all artwork and animation is 100% custom made, including any visual effects and background scenery. This video required 9 scenes, so a lot more work than for example the 2-3 scenes music videos we have been doing a couple of times recently. On the other hand, this video only has one key character, the bass playing passenger of the big balloon the the moon (based on Karl). There are also two young girls staring at the moon in one scene, but they are only seen silhouettes in one scene.
We wanted this official music video to be happy and warm, not dark, scary or cold, to fit the songs happy melody and lyrics. We wanted to make a detailed animated music video with quality artwork, 2.5D effects, lighting, backgrounds, the character, and the animations, using Anders Sundstedts personal illustration and animation style, while being different to our previous videos.
The production timeframe was roughly 12 weeks and very busy, but as always we delivered the video on time and on budget. A lot of decisions had to be made on the visual style, techniques, coloring, character design, camera movements and each sceness artwork and compositing. We kept the artist updated frequently on progress and delivered a few teaser clips from the scene design and some of animation.
Based on the rough idea for the story, we went ahead and developed the look and the later the storyboard for all shots of the animated music video, which was unusually challenging due to the many scenes and shots. We had to work our the exact timings to match the song lyrics and animate characters and lighting, to get the speed, timings, and the transitions and camera change right.
A central thing was working out how to illustrate and animate the main character and the different shots required, such as on the moon, where the last scenes take place. We made a few animation rigging tests to have characters and effects worked out before incorporating this into all the animated scenes of the storyboard. A big challenge was the astronaut character as he is dancing while playing the bass, and of course playing the strings as well. The same with the guitar, all illustrated and animated manually as there are no 3D elements in this video. We had intended to use a rig for the character, but it turned out it needed to be a combination of frame-by-frame animation and a rig, with mainly frame-by-frame for the body, arms and legs.
Looking for a custom made animated music video? Let’s chat!
We love making animated music videos with custom made background artwork, original characters, and animations, with the full creative freedom to design everything from the ground up. It was also another chance to create a storyboard from scratch, directly inspired by the lyrics of the song and from some of the ideas that the artist had suggested prior to the start of the production. We showed the storyboard to the client prior to starting the rest of the production, but it was created for internal use, mainly to plan out the storyline, the scenes, the artwork needed and the animation requirements.
This is how we usually work when making our official animated music video productions. With full creative freedom and the responsibility to design, draw, illustrate and animate the whole video based on the storyboard and/or any initial script concept.
As mentioned, the music video was completed on time within the deadline, a few weeks early as other work was put on hold to ensure the completion in time for a local film festival. On completion, we made a few adjustments to the end credits design. In total, we worked on the video for about 3 months, including the initial brief, visual design, art direction, storyboarding, artwork, background design and compositing, illustrations, shot compositing, camera animations, effects, animation, post, color grading, and editing.
Results
Upon completion, Anders presented and delivered the animated music video and Karl was super happy with the result, as mentioned in the testimonial above. This official animated music video is being shown online, on his website, YouTube social media, film festivals and more. We are helped to promote the video and song by social media including Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Vimeo, film festivals and our own website and this project page.
AWARDS
This animated music video we created has already done great at films festivals: 11 x winner, 1 semi-finalist, 1 quarter-finalist, 3 nominee, 1 honorable mention and 8 x official selection, which is really exciting.
Storyboard
Animated Music Video Storyboard by Anders Sundstedt (2022). 
Behind the Scenes
Feel free to hit us back with any questions or ideas. If you’re still not sure about the benefits of an animated music video for your song, then please have a look at these articles and pages:
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