Music: French director Benjamin Artola's hand-drawn music video for Grand Soleil's track Misfits transports a man out of a traffic jam onto a trippy journey through seas, deserts and space (+ movie).
Artola created the colourful animated world to accompany Grand Soleil's synth-throwback sound. The video begins with a fed-up man stuck in heavy traffic, caused by a rhino being airlifted away from a city.
Twisting a dial on the car's dashboard causes the traffic to blur away and be replaced by the psychedelic scenes.
"The goal was to create shelves, universes to cross, it's as if it was an open door to a video game taken on acid, with no hierarchy," Artola told Dezeen.
"It's a little like flying over a world that you created yourself, a world full of memories you grew up with, with also strange areas you discover for the first time, that are very active mirages."
Artola created the video by drawing all of the scenes in felt tip. He then scanned the pictures into Adobe Photoshop to create precise images for 2D animation.
A small team from the Parisian studio Nightshift edited the animation using Adobe After Effects software.
"Jerome Calvet, Hue and Aurelien Nicolas Fernandez worked on the edit," Artola told Dezeen. "I'm not a fan of computers so it was a great chance to work with such brilliant people like them."
In May, Artola designed the cover art for Grand Soleil's This is a Good Day EP. His illustration of two cars informed the idea for the Misfits music video.
"The idea of the road trip remained for the video clip," Artola told Dezeen. "When I met Grand Soleil, they explained to me their musical and artistic universe."
"I showed them the storyboard I had imagined, they liked it and then gave me carte blanche to do it," he explained.
Throughout the video, Artola included a number of references that had inspired him during the creative process.
The car in the video is a Peugoet 205, which is a reference to the car driven by the grandmother of the brothers behind Grand Soleil – but Artola also took inspiration from popular culture.
"The clip introduction is a nod to the movie Falling Dawn starring Michael Douglas," Artola told Dezeen. "The overview of the settings come from the movie Koyanniqatsi directed by Godfrey Reggio, but also from the Mega Drive video game Outrun."
"As well as that, the tunnel after the ice is made of ETs and there is also a little nod to the movie Karate Kid when in space a battle is coming, and the shining oracles come from The NeverEnding Story," Artola said.
Grand Soleil's track Misfits was released in May 2015 through Pain Surprises Records.