Watch the latest work, based on the hugely successful ‘Legends of Avantris’ D&D 5th edition folk-horror-adventure, ‘The Crooked Moon,’ from the composers on Cartoon Network’s ‘Over the Garden Wall’ series.
The Blasting Company, composers for the Cartoon Network Series Over the Garden Wall, have just released a brand-new animated lyric video for their single, “Coal Eyed Birds,” based on Legends of Avantris’ D&D 5th edition folk-horror adventure, “The Crooked Moon.”
“The Crooked Moon” is part of the supplement that was Kickstarted last year, generating more than $4 million to become the biggest D&D project of all-time on the platform. Legends of Avantris has grown to more than 1.69 million YouTube subscribers; the single was recently released to celebrate its seventh anniversary. The Blasting Company – the duo of Joshua Kaufman and Justin Rubenstein - also scored the recent Over The Garden Wall stop-motion short released for the show's 10th anniversary.
They will show and talk about the lyric video later today on a livestream on the Legends of Avantris YouTube channel in a livestream.
“Coal Eyed Birds” specifically highlights one of the adventure's chapters, where the player characters encounter a demon named Raum that was created when a scarecrow named Ol' Jericho Sticks fused with the demonic entity inside him named Virgil. They are represented by the two singers, Jericho (Frank Fairfield, the Toymaker in Over the Garden Wall) and Virgil (The Blasting Company’s Rubenstein).
The song tells the story of that poor, lonely scarecrow, who succumbs to possession by a demon and slowly is driven to insanity and violent outbreak (against the birds hanging around him).
Rae Gonzalez, who animated the lyric video, shared, “When I was brought onto this project to create a lyric video for ‘The Crooked Moon’ campaign, I was beyond excited. The song’s creative storyline immediately inspired me to craft a unique atmosphere that ties into its plot. I envisioned a creepy storybook and puppet show aesthetic to reflect Jericho’s lack of control, as if he were a puppet himself — a theme central to the song.”
“To bring this vision to life, I drew inspiration from iconic visuals, including frames from Tim Burton films, Halloween movies and cartoon media posters and opening sequences from said movies as well,” they continued. “Using After Effects, I transformed the assets provided into a cohesive, eerie look. This involved cutting assets into movable pieces, layering color grading to heighten the unsettling mood, and using effects to mimic a stop-motion style by lowering the frame rate. These were just some of the countless creative decisions layered into the project. The final result turns out as a video that captures the eerie spirit of the song while iterating elements of its underlying plot.”
Enjoy the video!
Source: The Blasting Company
Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.
