'Apple Tree' Music Video
An stop motion animation music video for Universal Music of Another Sky’s single, ‘Apple Tree’. A feminine young man spends his days sketching and talking to the flowers, much to the misunderstanding of his masculine peers. © Universal Music, 2019 and Dann Parry, 2019
‘Apple Tree’ is an ode to outsiderdom, put to the excellent visuals of the stop-motion music video directed by Dann Parry. The contrast of the colourful flowers against the maudlin grey of everyday life is as haunting as it is sharp.
-Let It Happen
Directors Statement
I found myself really resonating with the song and so the film was inspired by my own past growing up and how it could be seen to be reflected in the lyrics.
As a young teenager, I would often climb trees and go for walks by myself in the woods where I grew up rather than hanging out with the other kids who would play sports and so I tried to show this contrast between the two worlds in the animation.
I felt it important to show the character’s femininity as strength, rather than something to be pitied or mocked; when he is threatened and misunderstood his gentle personality and love for flowers rises up and protects him, while also breaking down the barriers between them in the process.
All of the characters, sets, and backgrounds were hand painted in black and white where the only real colour came from the flowers to really enhance the beauty and uniqueness of both them and the lead character in an otherwise sharp and aggressive world. And it’s when the softer natural side collides and grow with the masculine one that they become even more visually interesting.
Credits
Directed and Animated by Dann Parry
Produced by Roger Walker and Theo Broughton
Music by Another Sky
Background Artwork and Illustrations by Laura N-Tamara
Costumes by Andrew Dhesi
Production Assistants Hakim Ismail and Vincent Vaughan