Ten Degrees of Strange
Trying to outrun anxiety, seeking joy and strength in landscape and movement.
"Ten Degrees of Strange" is a music video based on a song by Robert Macfarlane and Johnny Flynn, from the album Lost in the Cedar Wood, directed and animated by Lynn Tomlinson. Taking inspiration from The Epic of Gilgamesh, an ancient story written on clay tablets, and responding to the strangeness of the global pandemic, this story of loss and hope in nature is told through colorful, shifting, changing, morphing clay on glass animation.
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Lynn TomlinsonDirectorThe Elephant's Song, The Ballad of Holland Island House
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Lynn TomlinsonAnimatorThe Elephant's Song, The Ballad of Holland Island House
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Robert MacfarlaneMusicRobert Macfarlane is a British writer and Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He is best known for his books on landscape, nature, place, people and language, which include The Old Ways, Landmarks, The Lost Words and Underland
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Johnny FlynnMusicJohnny Flynn is a British songwriter and actor who has released several albums, including Lost in the Cedar Wood, written with Robert Macfarlane. As an actor he has starred in Emma, Vanity Fair, Stardust, Love Sick, and many more.
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Craig SaperProducer
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Project Type:Animation, Experimental, Music Video, Short
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Genres:Animation, Music Video
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Runtime:4 minutes 29 seconds
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Completion Date:April 30, 2021
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Country of Origin:United States
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Country of Filming:United States
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Language:English
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Aspect Ratio:16:9
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Film Color:Color
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First-time Filmmaker:No
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Student Project:No
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Ottawa International Animation FestivalOttawa
Canada
September 25, 2021
Best Commissioned Animation -
Chesapeake Film FestivalEaston, Maryland
United States
October 3, 2021 -
Fantoche
Switzerland
Music VIdeo Darlings -
AnimasyrosSyros
Greece
September 22, 2021 -
Ann Arbor Film FestivalAnn Arbor
United States
March 23, 2022 -
Annecy International Animation Film FestivalAnnecy
France
June 13, 2022
Lynn Tomlinson animates moving clay paintings that transform and shift perspectives. Her work explores environmental themes, often imagining how non-human beings might view humanity's impact.
One of the unexpected benefits of the pandemic is that isolation forces us to find creative ways to work together, such as this international collaboration, devised entirely through emails and video chats. Robert Macfarlane and Johnny Flynn reached out to me about the possibility of creating a film to accompany their song, “Ten Degrees of Strange,” and as we talked, it became clear that my clay animation technique would be a perfect fit to tell this tale inspired by the Epic of Gilgamesh, which was written on clay tablets in cuneiform. As a medium, clay holds a lot of power— its malleability allows me to transition fluidly from scene to scene, much as the natural world shifts and evolves over time. In many ways my clay on glass animation is naturally suited for telling stories about the passage of time, evolving perspectives, and cycles in nature.
It was a risk to take this project on, because my technique takes about three hours for a finished second of animation, but I knew right away that this was something I wanted to do, so I worked round the clock from February through April. It is a wonderful song, full of energy and nuance, and though I listened to it hundreds of times as I worked, it never lost its magic.