Deadmau5 and Imogen Heap collaborated earlier this year on “Telemiscommunications”, and now they are reaching out to aspiring animators to create a video for the track. Imogen Heap released the following statement in regards to the contest:

Hello there… so, deadmau5 and I have written a song called Telemiscommunications and it’s out already as you may well know but we don’t have an official video for it yet! If you’re an animator… we’d love you to be a part of it.

The idea in a nutshell – The business man, our central character, is in an airport checking his phone and trying to have a conversation with the one he loves but bad signal, public announcements and kids screaming in the background are getting in the way of their precious little time to talk.

Throughout the video, we’ll see different businessmen connected by their frustrations in telemiscommunications. In the chorus sections he observes couples around him. In chorus one the couples are in love and affectionate but in Chorus 2 couples are not getting along so well.

Toward the end, for the ‘Did I tell you I loved you today xx’ section, a text is received. Here we revisit all our characters whose moods have brightened and colour bleeds in around them from these few words of affection.

So what next? – We want to find 20 animators to make this video with. Each animator will be able to take ownership over their own segment, working in their own styles and mediums and with their own character and background designs. A selected few will also have a brief appearance at the end to tie all the characters into the same scene when they receive the text. We have created a sketch for the length of the video with the position of the character on the screen including a 3D plane so you can see what the camera is doing. This way we can connect the animations together. Also you’ll see below each clip we’ve chosen a colour palette and given some direction for the mood we’d like to have in that section.

Colour palette – Now, we know how long it takes to animate so before you get too far, we’d like you to send us a link of previously made work and to submit a single frame treatment of the section you’d like to animate. From these submissions we’ll find our top 20 and get in touch with you.

For the three weeks following we’ll check in every now and then to see how you’re getting on for the final due date of Friday 4th January to get all animations in. Then we’ll edit and likely add after effects so they flow nicely together for uploading for all to see a week later. For each second we’ll pay the animators 50 USD but you only have three weeks to complete the animation so think about time you can dedicate to it as well!

Choose the section you would like to animate using the blue buttons under the video (below), then once you are registered we’ll lead you through the treatment submission process…

We can’t wait to see what comes in and put this video together.

Thanks so much for considering to be a part of this.

Telemiscommunication from HeapMau5 on Vimeo.