Capitol Hill artist Sean Pecknold devoted more than a month to create a 60-second animated Web video for Bumbershoot. By the time he was done, he wanted a "making of" video to share the contributions of his fellow members of Milk, a collective of young video and film artists working out of a studio on the Hill.
"Most people just don't get how labor intensive this is. The technology is cheaper, so you can do this very low budget, but you still have to spend a lot of time on the computer," said Pecknold.
In the end, Pecknold made the animated spot for Bumbershoot with the help of Chris Alderson, J. Baab, Matt Daniels and Tae Rhee, and then created the "making of" video.
"I'd been documenting what we'd been doing," explained Pecknold, "and then decided to post that on my website.
As Milk, the group had made several short films including "Numb," an entry in the 2007 Seattle International Film Festival Fly Filmmaking.
"A lot of the stuff that we do is very playful and childlike," said Pecknold, who is self-trained in video direction and computer animation. "I've taken some classes, but you learn the most just getting out there and working."
After high school, Pecknold worked for a production house for a few years and then started freelancing. He has directed commercial spots for Xbox and created numerous independent projects in film, photography, and print design under his own logo Grandchildren.
When asked why a 25-year-old designer used a name like Grandchildren for his business, Pecknold laughed and said, "I just liked the idea of being old one day and having all these little kids running around me."
Pecknold pitched the idea of the animated film to Bumbershoot: "They were very excited about the animation style and went with the first idea that we presented. Sometimes with clients, you have to go through several different ideas, so it was good to have them so positive about the initial designs."
Pecknold used the character of a young boy wandering from a small village through a rain of instruments and turntables into an enchanted musical Seattle. What looks very simple and clean in the 3-D computer animation required hours of work. For 60 seconds of film, the artists had to build the digital files for two full "landscapes" as well as hundreds of objects.
"We ended spreading it out over six to seven weeks, as we still have our day jobs, too," said Pecknold.
Luckily, Pecknold was able to find the right music for the spot close to home. His brother Robin Pecknold, who is in the band Fleet Foxes, supplied "White Winter Hymnal."
"I'd heard an earlier version of the song and liked it," said Pecknold. Fleet Foxes was working on an album and supplied the final studio version of "White Winter Hymnal" about the time that Pecknold was ready to set the spot to music. "When Robin brought in the final version, it just fit perfectly."
Having grown up in Seattle, Pecknold enjoyed doing his bit to promote the city's biggest arts and music festival, which occurs every year over the Labor Day weekend.
"Bumbershoot transforms Seattle into a magical city sending every summer out with a bang and it has been so fun to interpret that visually," he said.
The 60-second trailer started out on YouTube, MySpace, and the official Bumbershoot Web site, but has already started to spread across the Web in the genie-from-a-bottle nature of such things.
After only a week, "about 20 blogs and industry sites have picked it up," said Pecknold. Bumbershoot organizers have also told him that the spot will play in a number of record stores and continued to be used by Bumbershoot for the next three years.
In the end, Pecknold feels all the hard work paid off for him, not only professionally but also artistically.
"I would rather pour a month of my life into something that I love than work a 9 to 5 job," he said.
To view the Bumbershoot trailer by Sean Pecknold visit: www.bygrandchildren.com/bumber_trailer.html.
To view the "making of" video visit: www.bygrandchildren.com/makingof.html
Rosemary Jones writes about arts and entertainment for the Capitol Hill Times. She can be reached at editor @capitolhilltimes.com.
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