(October 2018 "From the Archive") - Animated Music Video for "The Eternal German Infant"

This is the first few minutes of the animated music video for “The Eternal German Infant” that I was working on from 2012 - 2015. It was supposed to be a video for the entire song, but this is all that I was able to complete. It STILL pisses me off that it's not finished.  

It all started when I was making the teaser video for our 2012 album Quickly Quickly Quickly (which you can watch here). I had always wanted to have an animated video for a Tea Club song, so I decided to try my hand at some stop motion animation. I liked the way it came out, so I got it into my head that I was going to make a Wizard of Oz meets Monty Python meets EarthBound-style animated video for a song from that album, “The Eternal German Infant”.

What I didn’t fully realize is that, like drawing comic books, animating a music video entirely by yourself with no experience with animation is FRIGGIN’ HARD.

For 3 years I tried to finish this thing, while also touring, writing, and recording another album. I'm pretty sure that I developed long-term neck problems as a result of straining my neck staring at the computer trying to animate this. I had sort of set myself up to fail, but at least I managed to get this much done.

The video is supposed to be a visual accompaniment for the story of the song “The Eternal German Infant”, which is a sort of love letter to my teenage years, and the boundless imaginary world that I discovered during that time. I wrote up a “treatment” for the entire video, and there are many more scenes and concept art that I drew up for the rest of it. I might release it here on Patreon at some point.

I was determined to finish this thing, but sadly I was forced to admit defeat once we released our next album Grappling in 2015. It kills me that I’m releasing this video unfinished, but I wanted you wonderful Patrons to see it, because I do love what I managed to accomplish. I still would love to finish it, but I don't know if it's possible. Maybe if enough of you like it and encourage me to do it, it might give me the motivation!

Let us know what you think, and thank you SO much for your continued support!

-Dan McGowan