Uploaded January 2022 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
A stop-motion animated music video for "All I Want Is You" by Marmalade Mountain: https://marmalademountain.xyz
The making of the video: youtu.be/oyUzxvv3h14
"It’s such a simple and direct song. I wanted to make a fittingly simple and direct video. There’s a great honesty to the visuals. It is exactly what it looks like—objects of nature, dry erase drawings, and paper cut-outs in front of an old TV screen, shot one frame at a time.
Callie Day worked with me on many parts of the video. She seemed to always have a solution when problems arose. We shot the live-action performance at Desert Island Studios, and used a very minimal and elegant setup. Just Zack playing and singing on a stool in a white void.
I had originally planned to print out every frame from the video onto paper, and then add drawings and nature objects on top of each sheet, but after doing the math, we realized just how wasteful that felt. Over 1,500 sheets of paper. I wanted to try and minimize as much waste as possible, and that became a theme for the video’s creation process. This theme led to only using objects in the video I already had, except for the natural elements which were easily procured from short walks around the neighborhood. Showing each frame on an old CRT created no physical waste, and it was quicker than switching out sheets of paper.
The animation setup was very basic. The camera was pointed down at an upward-facing TV, and then a piece of glass was placed on top, for objects to be placed on. CRTs are not very sharp. We tried out various screens. An iPad with its Retina display actually worked quite well, but I couldn’t get past how beautiful my small black and white screen looked on camera. I converted the video to PAL in order to get more scanlines onto the monitor for extra resolution.
Other than the edit, I didn’t want to use computers for the video. I could have composited all the elements together digitally, but I loved the idea of not hiding any of the process when it came to combining imagery. It was more like making a collage than being stuck on a computer keying green screen footage. This is the direction I’m heading with video-making: Less computers. More real life.
One thing I really appreciate from my time working on this video, is that up until this point, I’d never given leaves the attention they deserve. This video couldn’t have been shot at a better time. Autumn is definitely the season for leaves. So many different colors and shapes and textures. I can’t help but check them out everywhere I walk now."
A stop-motion animated music video for "All I Want Is You" by Marmalade Mountain: https://marmalademountain.xyz
The making of the video: youtu.be/oyUzxvv3h14
"It’s such a simple and direct song. I wanted to make a fittingly simple and direct video. There’s a great honesty to the visuals. It is exactly what it looks like—objects of nature, dry erase drawings, and paper cut-outs in front of an old TV screen, shot one frame at a time.
Callie Day worked with me on many parts of the video. She seemed to always have a solution when problems arose. We shot the live-action performance at Desert Island Studios, and used a very minimal and elegant setup. Just Zack playing and singing on a stool in a white void.
I had originally planned to print out every frame from the video onto paper, and then add drawings and nature objects on top of each sheet, but after doing the math, we realized just how wasteful that felt. Over 1,500 sheets of paper. I wanted to try and minimize as much waste as possible, and that became a theme for the video’s creation process. This theme led to only using objects in the video I already had, except for the natural elements which were easily procured from short walks around the neighborhood. Showing each frame on an old CRT created no physical waste, and it was quicker than switching out sheets of paper.
The animation setup was very basic. The camera was pointed down at an upward-facing TV, and then a piece of glass was placed on top, for objects to be placed on. CRTs are not very sharp. We tried out various screens. An iPad with its Retina display actually worked quite well, but I couldn’t get past how beautiful my small black and white screen looked on camera. I converted the video to PAL in order to get more scanlines onto the monitor for extra resolution.
Other than the edit, I didn’t want to use computers for the video. I could have composited all the elements together digitally, but I loved the idea of not hiding any of the process when it came to combining imagery. It was more like making a collage than being stuck on a computer keying green screen footage. This is the direction I’m heading with video-making: Less computers. More real life.
One thing I really appreciate from my time working on this video, is that up until this point, I’d never given leaves the attention they deserve. This video couldn’t have been shot at a better time. Autumn is definitely the season for leaves. So many different colors and shapes and textures. I can’t help but check them out everywhere I walk now."
