I am Allen Shaw, a Berlin-based Indian artist, illustrator, animator and storyteller. I love Autumn and every year I do a series of illustrations based on this beautiful season. Six months back when I posted my leaf illustrations on Bored Panda, I got a message from Clemens Schmuck, a band member of the German Acapella band “Alte Bekannte” asking whether I would be interested in doing a animated music video of one of the songs from their new album Bunte Socken (coloured Socks). The song is called “Nicht mein Zircus” (Not my Circus) and I simply fell in love with the song.I asked my team back home in India whether they were up to take up this project and they were game, so some three and a half months and 3000 frames later here is the video. We would like to thank Bored Panda for providing us the platform not only to showcase our work but opening new exciting doors.. This was such a fun project and we are happy sharing it on this platform. Since the song is in German , below is a brief write up about the video and the song.
“It's not my circus, it’s not my monkeys” is a Polish proverb which means that one is not responsible for controlling or changing a situation that volatile or delicate. The song builds on this proverb and it says that I have tried influencing the situation by being in it but it doesn’t work and I am tired of it. It essentially means that people should take care of their own shit. I realized that this feeling of, “it’s not my problem, keep me out of it” is almost a universal feeling and it’s a fun way to say “it’s not my circus and it’s not my monkey”. So when we were asked to make an animated video out of the song I wanted to approach it in a fun way too, yet communicate this very intense/serious feeling. The first image that came to my mind was Darwin's “Evolution” and I decided to tell the story from where it all started, there are many visual references (history, art, cinema, music ) in the video which kind of keeps reminding the viewer that this circus has been going on ever since we started balancing on two legs and walking.
The animation technique used is classical frame by frame hand drawn animation. For some of the sequences we used rotoscopy as well but all frames are hand drawn and coloured with watercolours.
The song is from the Album “bunte socken” (coloured socks) so I wanted to reflect that in the video as well. I didn’t want to convey any serious messages through the storytelling but there was a very conscious effort to cover different aspects of this circus called life. The “running man” dance form was also chosen from the perspective that we have been running since it all started and it is one reoccurring element that kind of binds all the imagery together.
The lyrics also says that it’s not my circus, it’s not my monkeys, it’s not my construction site, it’s not my house and I want to get out, so I looked at actually leaving earth and going into space and in the end I am also looking at it from an aliens perspective where the alien also has the same thoughts and leaves his planet and faces reality…that we’re all in this shit together.
We simply wanted the viewers to have fun watching this circus!