Things Get Animated in Music Videos

In the music video for the hot new single “Clint Eastwood,” an army of mutant apes explodes to the surface from underground and dances a disturbing ode to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” As the menacing primates approach a cemetery, a blank-eyed slacker named 2-D stands between the headstones and sings a Rasta pop tune, flanked by the band’s sneering leader and bassist Murdoc, the bouncy 10-year-old bassist Noodle and the mild-mannered drummer Russel.

Together they make up Gorillaz, Britain’s sizzling pop sensation. The group’s self-titled debut album currently stands at No. 26 on the Billboard 200 music chart, and it has been nominated for a Mercury Music Prize--Britain’s equivalent of the Grammy--for album of the year.

All of that and they don’t even exist.

Not in three dimensions at least. Gorillaz is a cartoon quartet that only lives in the two-dimensional world of animated music videos. Although the music comes from an artist collective that includes Blur vocalist Damon Albarn and rapper Del tha Funkee Homosapien, the characters have their own personalities and are not tied to their real-world counterparts. On the Web site for the band (https://www.gorillaz.com), the characters even have separate biographies.

For example, simultaneously lampooning and exemplifying bandleaders everywhere, it is said that Murdoc “likes to dominate interviews” and is “a rent-a-quote misogynist who speaks without a taste filter.” Russel, according to the Web site, is occasionally possessed by fully animated “funkyphantoms” who provide some “undead rapping” on the record. They have all of the style, attitude and funkiness of a rock band, just none of the flesh.

About to begin a tour of Japan and then England--the animated characters appear on a huge screen while the clandestine musicians play behind it--the Gorillaz experiment breaks the rules of rock ‘n’ roll. In its two-dimensional righteousness, the band has even attempted to decline its nomination for the Mercury Prize.

Conceived three years ago as a project between roomies Albarn and “Tank Girl” comic book creator Jamie Hewlett, Gorillaz is more than a diversion from their better-known public personas.

“I think there’s a need for something more noble and more fantastic than mere human beings,” said Albarn. “The only way to put soul back into pop music is to get ever more zany and unrealistic.”

But Gorillaz, along with France’s anime-loving electronica duo Daft Punk, is more than just an experiment.

In a larger sense, Gorillaz illustrates a trend among recording artists who are using animation to breathe life back into the music video.

“I think there’s a growing sense within that community that it can be very hard to truly make an original live-action video,” said Virgin Records America Co-President Ray Cooper.

With shows such as “The Real World” and “Jackass” chewing up more and more programming real estate on MTV, videos are getting less play--turning up the heat on artists to make ever more innovative and memorable videos.

Animation stands out from glitzy videos full of lip-syncing boy bands and lines of hip-hop dancers. It’s eye candy for a generation with a visual sugar tooth.

After Korn’s 1999 Grammy win for the partially animated video “Freak on a Leash,” the world of two dimensions has exploded onto MTV and MTV2.

Artists such as Pearl Jam, Madonna, Bjork and Radiohead have all joined the animation revolution, with the ambitious projects by Gorillaz and Daft Punk taking the form to new levels.

Leading with “One More Time,” a flashy Japanese anime video, Daft Punk has mounted a project to animate all 14 songs from its “Discovery” album, each a separate episode in a continuous story line.

But why animation?

“Freedom,” said Albarn. “The world of animation is only limited by its creator’s imagination. And when you apply that to the world of making music, it’s just so exciting.”

A lot has changed in music videos since the band A-Ha’s 1985 video “Take on Me,” in which the worlds of 2-D and 3-D stylishly collided. Technology has made animation faster, easier and often more economical to produce. Neo-metal band Tool put a new, darker spin on stop-motion animation (the kind used in Tim Burton’s “The Nightmare Before Christmas”) with its videos from “Sober” to “Schism.” Hip-hop songstress Aaliyah also got animated in teaser promos for a new album.

“Back a few years ago, they painted each frame--it’s so much easier now to do animation,” said Tom Calderone, senior vice president in charge of programming at MTV and MTV2. “It’s cheaper, and it gives [artists] an opportunity to get out of the typical music video form of a band performing.”

Radiohead’s computer-animated video for “Pyramid Song,” Daft Punk’s “One More Time” and Gorillaz’s “Clint Eastwood” are all in heavy rotation on MTV, Calderone said.

Whether animated videos are truly more economical depends on several factors. Michael Jackson set the cost bar with his $7-million live-action video for “Scream,” but most live-action videos cost from $350,000 to $500,000, according to industry sources.

Although video animators are reluctant to reveal their budgets, traditional TV animation can run $50,000 a minute, with music videos, on the average, running from 31/2 to 4 minutes.

Animation costs vary--computer animation programs such as Flash have taken much of the reproductive grunt work out of animation through easy object manipulation and can lower costs to $10,000 to $15,000 for three minutes of low-tech effects--yet industry sources say the average animated video will run $150,000 to $300,000, with costs decreasing once software and infrastructure are in place.

It is not exactly loose change, but it can still be cheaper than hiring a full film crew and a famous director to get your band’s video noticed.

The animation process can be lengthy. Though a slick live-action music video by a hot director such as Spike Jonze can cost more than $500,000, it can be shot within a week, often in two days. The Gorillaz’s “Clint Eastwood” video took four months to make--although the follow-up, “19-2000,” was finished in three months, after the software and process had been streamlined.

All things considered, though, it’s not a bad deal, said Virgin Records’ Cooper. Aaliyah, Gorillaz and Daft Punk are all Virgin artists, making animation somewhat of an investment for the label.

Animation has moved up in the cultural pantheon, no longer pigeonholed as a child’s medium. Films such as “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” and Japan’s “Akira” showed what was possible, while the newly released “Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within” further blurs the line between technology and realistic human characters in animation.

Animation sets no boundaries for artists, Cooper said, and it caters to the sensibilities of the key 16-to-24 demographic.

“They watch Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon as much as they watch MTV,” he said.

Cooper said he’s interested to see whether younger pop groups adopt the form in the next few years. Newcomer Nikka Costa has already integrated an animated character into her Web site, as has hip-hop artist Redman, whose “Let’s Get Dirty” video included animated elements.

“From my point of view, I’ve grown really tired of the celebrity aspect of being in a band. It just kind of became an all-pervading thing: There has to be something new every year, regardless of its merit,” Albarn said. “This was a medium that excited both of us and seemed to be the antidote to all this overproduction and blandness” in music today.

Robert K. Elder is a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, a Tribune company.