Animator Simon Ward's latest music video is the charming tale of a fictional 70s electronic trio, touring around rural New Zealend - in the style of period children's TV animations like The Magic Roundabout - for the Kiwi musician Amelia Berry, aka Amamelia.

Ward's video for The Floating Opera - creating a eponymous band and capturing an idealised version of 70s Aotearoa (New Zealand) - is a response to Amamelia's synth-heavy track that was inspired by a song by Japanese electronica pioneers Yellow Magic Orchestra. It's the second Ward-directed video for Berry's music, following their collaboration on Colourbox. 

The video takes inspiration from children's shows Woolly Valley, old New Zealand pop music shows and a rare Pentangle performance on the British TV show, 'Journey Into Love' from 1971.

“I had an electric first listen to the song,” notes Simon Ward. “I loved the upbeat and original sounds and it really took me on a trip that inspired the journey of the video.

“Like with the Colourbox video we chatted enthusiastically about style and influences that we both love. We went through collage animation techniques, to 70s English kids shows and a long time spent watching YouTube videos from the medieval music historian David Munrow. The process involved a lot of sharing links from the amazing info libraries on Audioculture and NZonScreen too.

“There's a bit of Aotearoa music history in there and some iconic public performance locations from around the country. I also imagined idealistic spots a band might play doing a tour around Aotearoa in the 70s.”

“For the design of the characters we kept talking about old kids shows like the Magic Roundabout and Amelia spoke of Fingerbobs, so we kinda mashed that sort of inspiration together and combined it with the crafty textures and collage looks of some more modern console games, making sure there was a lot of fabrics and wool involved, but maybe more like photos of those textures. It's a real wandering mashup!”