Hayley Morris creates a beautiful watercolor and stop-motion world for Iron & Wine’s Joy. The stunning music video was created over the course of two months in her Brookyln studio. Hayley was kind enough to share some of her creative process with us.
When brainstorming ideas for possible narratives and visual interpretations of the song I was drawn to a particular lyric. “Deep inside the heart of this crazy mess I’m only calm when I get lost within your wilderness.” This is what sparked my idea.
Joy is a song about love and taking a moment to realize how someone can vastly change how you perceive yourself and the world around you. My goal for this video was to make the viewer feel this sense of joy, discovery and appreciation by following the organic flow of the song as the landscape changes through bursts of color, growth and transformation. Through his eyes we see how the woman Sam sings about changes his world by catching glimpses of her within the different plants, rocks, trees and objects that occupy the scenery/himself. In the end we see that he is full of color and vibrancy.
The video is a mixed-media piece. It’s composed of a blend of rotoscope watercolor animations and stop-motion. I hand made every piece in the landscape from found objects, paper, clay and various materials, and then projected her image into the set pieces. Each scene was shot frame by frame with Dragon in my studio space in my apartment. It was nice rolling out of bed and ready for work!
Credits
Artist: Iron and Wine
Director/Animator: Hayley Morris
Fabricators: Hayley Morris, Denise Hauser and Randy Bretzin
Color Correction: Evan Kultangwatana
Model for watercolor animation: Louise Sheldon
Record Label: Nonesuch Records
