Animated heavy metal translates into success

RMIT lecturers Aaron McLoughlin and Simon Norton are running an animation studio every year in conjunction with the Nuclear Blast music label in Germany.

Nuclear Blast are not only the world's largest heavy metal music label but also one of the largest independent music labels in the world.

In the studio, third year students in the Bachelor of Design (Animation and Interactive Media), get the opportunity to work on a significant folio piece and add a high profile international client to their resume.

Students work in a group environment to produce a 2D animated music video for a client, the most recent being Finnish client Korpiklaani, a high profile European folk metal band.

Korpiklaani are extremely popular, particularly in Europe. Their videos receive a lot of online exposure and the clip made by RMIT students has already had over 410,000 views on YouTube.

Student Madeleine Parker-Hill said that this production was a real challenge for most of the team.

“We had to learn how to extend beyond our own abilities to work with real world limitations and clients but are very happy with the results,” Parker-Hill said.

“It was great to have the learning experience in a studio environment."

Lecturer Aaron McLouglin said working with music and design elements that were so unfamiliar to the students was an interesting challenge.

“The end result sees the blending of traditional Finnish lore and colour palettes with Korpiklaani's own stories and iconography."

“So far it's been a very successful ongoing project – this video is the result of our 2nd video and we've currently got a 3rd one in production, “ McLoughlin said.

“We look forward to further strengthening our relationship with Nuclear Blast in years to come, they're a growing brand and we're very pleased to be involved in offering their artists and our students exposure.”

The students originally produced the video for the Korpiklaani song 'Viinamäen mies' (translates as vineyard man) which is sung in the Finnish language, however after seeing the video the band decided to re-record the vocals in English and use the video to launch their latest tour.

The English version is now 'A Man With A Plan'.

Story: Wendy Little