Piston Junkies: Interview with Video Artists Kerb
Published 39 months ago
Dazed speeks to video artists Kerb about "Piston Junkies", their latest animated video.
Wantonly violent, drug-huffing, dog-munching motorcyclists in a disturbingly cutesy future cityscape? Yes please. Over a year in the making, and with music from Long Range (one half of Orbital Phil Hartnoll, and producer Nick Smith), Piston Junkies is the creation of Kerb, a Brighton-based digital agency. Dazed Digital spoke to them about the project, which you can see in its entirety below. (Warning: may contain scenes of extreme violence to cute, wide-eyed puppies. Albeit digital ones.)
Click play below to watch "Piston Junkies" by Kerb.
Dazed Digital: What's Piston Junkies all about then, and was it inspired by the music?
Kerb (Dylan Van Loggerenberg): It's basically the story of four misfit motorbike gang members - they are violent, drug-taking, oversexed and deviant, yet cute and shiny. They inhabit a dark, futuristic world that has been used up and burned out. We had the characters and concept for the Piston Junkies floating around for a while, but unlike a music video where the visuals are built around a music track, the animation was created first, and Phil and Nick added the music and built the soundtrack around it.
DD: How long did you spend working on it?
K: The whole animation took close to a year to finish - it was a side project, so was mainly worked on in any spare time we had between paying jobs. The bulk of the work was done by our one 3D animator and myself .
DD: How did you come to work with Long Range?
K: We were sharing a building with Phil for four years. Being huge Orbital fans, we were always really keen to do some kind of collaboration with him.
DD: Who are Kerb and what do you do?
K: We specialize in Flash games and animation, and have a very talented team of illustrators and programmers who insure all our work has a very striking and unique look. Kerb has been around for over ten years now and we have worked for a vast array of clients from Bandai to the BBC.
DD: Why do you think animation in music vids is becoming increasingly popular?
K: I think computer animation is definitely going to redefine what happens in the music video industry over the next few years. The relatively cheap production costs and widely-available access to programs like Flash have blown the market open for aspiring animators. Bands no longer need to be held ransom by the huge production costs involved with traditional videos. And I think in an increasingly visual and broadband-driven market, it's becoming vital to have a video to promote new songs.
DD: What else are you working on?
K: With the good response we have had from Piston Junkies, we will be looking to work on similar projects soon. We have also been busy working on a new site and range for our clothing line called Wrong Clothes. We have also recently launched a blog to show off some of the in-house talent we have, it will feature non-commercial work from our illustrators and designers, and basically serve as a creative outlet from the corporate work we do.
Kerb's website and blog.
Long Range's website and blog.
