The video clip above was created by staff at Superbrothers HQ to accompany the launch of Scntfc’s Moon Grotto 7″ via Venus Patrol. The Moon Grotto is a hidden location in #sworcery with a lunatic soundscape by Scntfc, who also handled the number station transmission & related materials. Some of these otherwordly concepts as well as Scntfc’s involvement in the Sword & Sworcery project were motivated by Brandon Boyer at Venus Patrol, praise be.
The visual elements in the digital clip are adapted from the analog package design for the limited edition vinyl release of Scntfc’s Moon Grotto 7″. Most of this clip was created in Unity and filmed on an iPhone. Some macroscopic footage from Scntfc’s ongoing UNDONE project is also included. There are clues in the clip and on the vinyl record if you would like to ‘keep on digging’. Thx to Andy Rohrmann & Brandon Boyer for inspiration, thx to Jos Yule for unspecified html shenadigans.
A Superbrothers representative had this to say about the package design and the clip:
“I firmed up the package design a while ago while listening to Scntfc’s songs. For anyone who was moved by the ending of #sworcery: please enjoy the new painting ‘a pale fire’ on the inside of the gatefold, it was painted with a similar spirit.”
“The clip presented an opportunity for me to get familiar with Unity, and somewhat clumsily get back into the groove with 3-D in general. Scntfc’s original Moon Grotto soundscape is otherwordly & obscure, hauntingly so, I hope the clip evokes some of that.”
Brandon says, ‘Sorry for the random add, mostly wanted to say that Saints of Infinity has remained one of my faves for the past near decade now. Hope all’s well!’
That was the first message I received from Brandon Boyer, dated February 25th, 2010. I wasn’t familiar with the name, but a bit of Googling revealed him to be an important man in circle that I wasn’t immediately familiar with. It’s always great to hear when someone appreciates your work, but I had no idea what great things were to follow from that initial contact.
I have created music and sound for all sorts of projects throughout the years – scores for films, backgrounds for TV ads, audio installations for museums, remixes, and albums – but had only very recently worked on my first video game (remixing some dudes named Cash and Dylan for this game called Crackdown 2 for this video game machine called an Xbox 360). So, it was a happy coincidence that this heavy hitter in the video game world happened to contact me right around the time I began venturing into his world, and not long after that that we would even end up collaborating…
A few moons pass and Brandon mentions this secret project that involved some secret audio things and asked if I would maybe want to help make those secret things a reality. I was then introduced to the staff at Superbrothers, kind words were exchanged, ideas were bounced between the three of us, and soon we began carving a temple to the moon in the rocky slopes of the foothills of Mingi Taw.
Many more moons pass, and Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP is released to the public and it becomes a Thing. A few adventurers travel off the beaten path, discover the Moon Grotto, hear some mysterious music, and bend space and time to their will. And they are intrigued, and want to know more…
Yet more moons pass and Brandon is busily hatching plans for a new website. He wants to Kickstart it, and seeing as we had collectively created this Grotto, and that it had a few more secrets to reveal, Venus Patrol was the perfect opportunity to craft a real object that would round out that tiny corner of the #sworcery universe, connect the dots between Superbrothers, B-Boy and scntfc, and thus… the ‘Moon Grotto 7″‘ was born.
I can’t thank Brandon and Craig at Superbrothers enough for getting me involved in this… quite frequently my line of work (and fun) can be thankless, with hard work unnoticed and wonderful collaborations unacknowledged. Yet here was a project that proved otherwise, and reaffirmed my long held belief that people are Awesome and do Awesome things. Every single interaction I’ve had since that first message from Brandon has been Awesome. Craig = Awesome. Kris, Nathan, and Capy = Awesome. Jim Guthrie = Awesome. Brandon = Awesome. I was just a tiny part of this giant thing called #sworcery, but I’m eternally grateful to have been able to help make it a Thing, and we owe it all to Mr. Boyer for forcing the planets (and Moon) into alignment to make it happen.
Thanks everyone for chipping in to make Venus Patrol a reality, now we are cosmic friends forever!
Keep on digging,
Andy aka @scntfc
