Yesterday, I was excited to mark the release of my first official music video.

In March of this year, my friend (and client) Bill MacKay and I traveled to Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie to film a video for Powder Mill Park, a track from Esker, his debut release on Drag City Records. We spent the windy, sunny day shooting introspective footage of Bill exploring the decommissioned munitions bunkers that pepper the Midewin landscape.

Perhaps driven to excess ambition by my recent acquisition of a Wacom Intuos tablet and free illustration/animation software Krita, my initial conceptual impulse for the video was to create 'hand-drawn' animations over the Midewin footage. Upon viewing the first edit of the video, however, Bill insisted that he loved it as-is, and that no further changes or extras would be necessary. In the end, I capitulated to his wishes; I am excited to employ the animation ideas I explored for PMP in a future project.

Here's an example of a test animation I made before the Midewin shoot, and some animated end credits that ended up on the cutting room floor.