A PIRATE MEETS A FLEA

Ross Payne is the designer, animator and director of our fab new animated music video, A Pirate Meets A Flea.

Ross is well known to fleaBITE fans for his work on Don’t Sit Under The Poo Tree, Probably Papakura and In The Orchestra.  Inspired by the old 2D Warner Brothers cartoons, his animation flows seamlessly, lovingly hand-drawn frame by frame.

As a Creative Producer, I enjoy being involved in the initial creative process of projects, and the obvious place for us to start on A Pirate Meets A Flea was the characters.

First up, the Pirate. 

Ross sketched him as a bald-headed bruiser before we switched tack and decided to represent all the characters as animals.  “How about a dog?” he said, offering a scruffy pooch.  I found it too genial to represent the snarling Pirate.  “How about a rat?” he suggested.  That seemed to better fit the spirit of the Pirate, and Ross turned out to be a dab hand at drawing rats from all angles.  His first Pi-Rat was rather rotund but slimmed down through successive sketches. We liked the idea of Pi-Rat captaining a small dinghy, with a sail made out of huge pair of underpants.

The Flea was much harder to capture.  

We agreed the Flea would be female (a fleamale) and Ross set to work to find the perfect Ms Flea. “Too ugly”, I said, “too butch, too fat, too hairy, too …repulsive”.  We were at a loss.  “Forget six legs”, I said, “ The flea should be appealing so the audience will forget that she is a blood-sucking parasite”. 
Once Ross put the reality (and his disgust) of fleas to one side he came up with a series of light bouncy contenders.  I chose an agile character adorned with an ‘I Dream of Jeannie’ top knot. And so Ms Flea was born.

The Narrator was a later addition. 

Ross wanted an octopus (the legendary Kraken) and drew it sitting in a fishbowl with all its legs dangling out over the side.  It looked great but turned out to be a nightmare to animate (all those legs!).  I happened to be down in Dunedin, mixing new songs with Angus McNaughton.  As I drove around the beautiful Otago Peninsula I came upon a crowd of cormorants (also known as shags) sitting on sharp rocks with their wings outstretched.  I called Ross, and Shagatha the Narrator came into being. 

Ross then sketched an animatic, showing how the visuals synced up with the music and story throughout the song. It worked perfectly, and even Ross was chuffed with the result.

At this point, I bowed out and let Ross work his magic with the animation, colours etc.

Let’s just say that animation, especially when done by a lone master craftsman, takes a lot longer than you’d think.  Having worked with Ross before I knew that the result would be well worth the wait. 

And so we present A PIRATE MEETS A FLEA for your viewing (and singing) pleasure.

Ross and I look forward to many more musical animation projects to sink our collective teeth into.