The music video that we suggest you today is something really AMAZING!
It was realized for the song Baby I’m Yours by Breakbot, a French producer and DJ born in 1981 (he’s now signed with Ed Banger Records).

The video has been realized like the oldest animation movies (early Disney): frame by frame, more than 2000 images were painted one after another by the artist Irina Dakeva. But what makes it more cool is the technique of watercolors (“we say Aquarelle in french, way more sexy“) on a black background: the colors are brighter and the result is astonishing.

The music video was nominated for “Best budget pop/dance/urban video” and “Best animation in a video” during the UK Music Video Awards on October 12, 2010.

I’ll copy here a complete interview that Motiongrapher.com realized talking with Irina Dakeva about the video, with questions that wonder about the whole production of this masterpiece:

Motiongrapher: How did you come up with the concept and idea for your treatment of this music video?
 
Dakeva: The day me and Breakbot decided to make the video, I was already fed up with the inherently cold digital nature of most contemporary productions. We wanted to achieve something lively, frolic and emotional; something that accentuates the analogue drawing itself rather than the inevitable computerized interpretation and post-processing.

Motiongrapher: What was your process like in making all the aquarelle paintings? Were you working off of filmed / rotoscoped footage? How many frames were there altogether?
 
Dakeva: Wizz arranged for a day of shooting with Breakbot, Irfane and the oh so beautiful friend of ours – Sunny. This provided us the very base for the video, on top of which we could draw frame by frame the traditional, watercolor animation. I’ve never counted the exact number drawings, still, in the end, on top of those that didn’t make it into the video, there must be more than 2000.

Motiongrapher: How long did this whole project take?
 
Dakeva: About 3 months and a half.

Motiongrapher: The instrumental / morphing section is so beautiful, fluid and elegant – was it more challenging than the live-action parts?
 
Dakeva: It was more challenging to conceive it, but actually easier to draw than the live-action parts. We were almost finished with the part based on the film footage and still we didn’t have anything confirmed for the ending. Just a few basic ideas. At the very last moment, things were worked out in an almost magical, spontaneous way. And the ideas assumed quickly a definite form. I keep very warm feelings from this part of the production effort, the spirit and energy of the team members, and the way vibrations rebounded in the studio. We were having so much fun working on this part!

Motiongrapher: Was there anything that you particularly loved about making this video? Anything difficult or not-so-fun?
 
Dakeva: Answering the challenge is one thing that I love about it. It was the first deep dive in the realm of traditional animation for me and I felt that meditativeness, which an experienced friend of mine once told me about. I guess, maybe it is exactly that feared, inherent repetitiveness of the workflow in animation projects that provides the meditative character to this process. Funny, isn’t it?