Israeli alternative rock band Eatliz is on the rise—but not necessarily because of their music.
Lead songwriter Guy Ben Shetrit, a creative virtuoso based in Tel Aviv, created an animated music video for the band’s hit single, “Hey” which has won acclaim at film festivals around the world. The video was awarded The Spike Lee prize at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival as part of the Babelgum online competition, a web-based indie film festival chaired by Lee.
In the video, a stop motion fantasy, a young girl is taken on a wild adventure by her oversize pet toad, who is chasing after a flea. The girl gets dragged along, tossed into the air, thrust from the top of a building and sets her sights on an evasive green balloon. The story begins with whimsy but evolves into something darker, its overall style recalling a Tim Burton fantasy, like those in the animated films, “The Nightmare Before Christmas” and “The Corpse Bride.” Shetrit’s animation is sharp, his transitions nearly seamless, and the action in the story is well paced with the music. There are a number of striking references to the 1956 French short film “The Red Balloon,” in which a young boy follows a balloon throughout the city of Paris, though this is decidedly more sinister.
See it for yourself:
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