Promoting Good Animation: Fever the Ghost

Susanna Abler
Sep 4, 2018 · 3 min read

Felix Colgrave is one of my favorite animators of all time. His style is distinct and has an air of whimsy about it; he creates monstrous beings that are both unsettling and endearing. While he has many notable works like The Elephant’s Garden and Double King, his music video for Fever the Ghost by Source is an excellent example of good animation for its intriguing narrative and world as well as its interaction with sound.

The narrative in this piece follows what is likely a day and night cycle for this small earth-like planet, a cycle that is manually initiated by a old man and his dragon. We follow the chain reaction of events as various surreal events and characters appear. The piece ends with the old man and the dragon turning the world of and returning to their home, and I am under the assumption that this will happen again and again, it’s just the normal, daily part of their world.

They leave for the day (left) and return home at the end (right)

One of my favorite things about this work is the nature of the world he has constructed. Everything has an exaggerated style and the characters designs almost feels uncomfortable, but each individual creation has an incredible amount of personality. These unique and somewhat eerie designs lend themselves well to the dramatic and unusual cycle. The second world, which we first see around 1:32, is a desert planet filled with ruins and odd creatures. We see what might be a deity or a temple to a deity raised from the sand with the coming of the night along with many other buildings we’d previously seen as just ruins. The animation establishes a backstory and history for this world in a short period of time.

While much of the animation is consistently fluid notable in the movement of the dragon starting around 0:22, the flow is punctuated by poignant snappy movements that exemplify the rhythm and downbeats of the music. This close matching of the animation to the music is a key part in what makes this work so great. It not only follows the rhythm and beat but also includes subtle movements that point towards less noticeable musical undertones. The sudden burst of light from the face of the hill at 1:05 captures the underlying vocal chorus heard in the music. There is an incredible amount of detail put into this work, bothy stylistically and technically.

BetweenTheFrames

Animated analysis from UMBC's Intro to Animation class

Susanna Abler

Written by

An interdisciplinary Visual Arts student. Prosthetic design is my passion!

BetweenTheFrames

Animated analysis from UMBC's Intro to Animation class

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