Animated Music Videos
Animated Music Videos are always unique, one-of-a-kind projects that are ripe with opportunities to tell both a visual and musical story. The videos below are the attempts by Nick of Navatta Studios to play with animation and put it to music.
Check out a few of our animations and groove along to the songs and visuals!
This Lettter by These Are Houseplants
‘This Letter’ by These Are Houseplants is a 2-D animated video created in 2023. With the co-creative help of Forrest York (co-writer of the song, along with Colin York), Nick was able to visualize a story that grounded the song in a slightly psychedelic visual world while still telling the human story of the song itself.
Forrest provided the main thrust of the concept that you’ll notice is ever-present in the video-growing plants! This is both a nod to the band ‘These are Houseplants’ but is also used as both a generative and destructive symbol of the changing nature of the failed romantic relationship the song details.
The video and song centers around a couple who has fallen out of love and are separating. The mood is slightly empty and eerie while the music and vocals bring you in and out of despondent but passionate reveries. Nick’s visuals are straightforward but evocative of sadness and symbolic of a painful goodbye.
Evergreen By Gavin Mikhail
This time-lapsed charcoal animated video was created about ten years ago when Nick was just getting into animation. An interesting tidbit about this animated video is that it got 200k views in less than 24 hours! It has since gone on to be viewed over 300k times and is always there for your holiday listening needs.
“I met Nick several months back on a speaking engagement at a music industry seminar. We kept in touch after that, and when YouTube contacted me in late November to create a holiday video… Nick was my first call. At that point, I’d seen only his cartoon-esque work, but knowing I wanted to do an animated video… I thought it’d be fun to try. Honestly, I had NO IDEA he was such a versatile artist, and what he ended up creating… quite frankly… blows me away. Using only a single canvas… sketched, photographed, and resketched 15 HUNDRED times… he brought my original Christmas song ‘Evergreen’ to life.”
-Gavin Mikhail
Front Row BY Ezekiel Jay Band
This video is an animated music video co-created with musician Ezekiel Jay in 2018 . Ezekiel Jay (Zeke) approached Nick about making an animated video for his awesome song, Front Row.
This is the second music video created by Nick. It was fun because there was lot of room for playful exploration. It was also challenging because we really wanted to do the song justice while creating a world of zany characters!
The best part about working on this video was working with Zeke, who contributed the idea of making all the characters animals. This is the kind of collaborative and fun spirit we like to create in at Navatta Studios!