WANDERLUST

written by björk and sjón

produced by björk

björk: vocals, brass arrangement, synth bass, programming and editing

mark bell: beats

matt robertson: midi transcription and part preparation for brass

damian taylor: programming, morse code, editing and engineering

michael pärt: engineering/editing

aron arnarsson: assistant engineering

the brass section: sylvía hlynsdóttir, ása berglind hjálmarsdóttir, dröfn helgadóttir, valdís þorkelsdóttir, karen j. sturlaugsson, björk níelsdóttir, sigrún jónsdóttir, harpa jóhannsdóttir, vilborg jónsdóttir, bergrún snæbjörnsdóttir, erla axelsdóttir,særún pálmadóttir, lilja valdimarsdóttir, brynja guðmundsdóttir

published by universal music. publishing ltd./copyright control

I am leaving this harbour
giving urban a farewell
its habitants seem too keen on God
I cannot stomach their rights and wrong

I have lost my origin
and I don't want to find it again
rather sailing into nature's laws
and be held by ocean's paws

wanderlust
relentlessly craving
wanderlust
peel off the layers
until you get to the core

did I imagine it would be like this
was it something like this I wished for
or will I want more?

lust for comfort
suffocates the soul
this relentless
restlessness
liberates me
sets me free

I feel at home whenever
the unknown surrounds me
I receive its embrace
aboard my floating house

wanderlust
relentlessly craving
wanderlust
peel off the layers
until you get to the core

did I imagine it would be like this?
was it something like this I wished for?
or will I want more?

wanderlust!
from island to island
wanderlust!
united in movement
wonderful!
I enjoy it with you

wanderlust!

can you spot a pattern?

relentlessly restless
restless relentlessly
restless relentlessly

can you spot a pattern?

Video Credit List

Directors: Encyclopedia Pictura (Isaiah Saxon and Sean Hellfritsch). Production Company: Ghost Robot. Producer: Mark De Pace. Executive Producer: Zach Mortensen. Label: One Little Indian. Commissioner: Paul McKee. Post Production Company: UVPHACTORY (Scott Sindorf, Principal and Co-Founder Damijan Saccio, Principal and Co-Founder Alexandre Moors, Creative Director Brian Welsh, Executive Producer). CGI Supervisor: Damijan Saccio. Executive Producer: Brian Welsh. Lead CGI Artists: Tim Marinov, Susie Jang, San Charoenchai. CGI Artists: Daniel Uranowski, Nayoun Kim, Nicholas Fischer, Raj Soni, Jeff Baghai, Nick Martinelli, (Special Thanks to Dilip Singh from Softimage for R&D assistance). Compositing Supervisors: Matthew Lane-Smith, Encyclopedia Pictura, Tenzin Phuntsog. Compositors: Isaiah Saxon, Sean Hellfritsch, Matthew Lane-Smith, John Dorocki, Mike Burgoyne, Toon van den Broek, John Earle Compositing/Rotoscoping interns: Gyunam Kim. Production Manager: Matthew Achterberg. Art Director: Isaiah Saxon. Practical Effects Supervisor/Associate Director: Daren Rabinovitch. Fabricaton Supervisor: Tirsch Hunter. Lead Puppet Artist: Vanessa Waring. Mold and Cast Supervisor: Erick Dunn. Mold Maker: Sabrina Lessard. Puppet Mechanics: John Weissberger. Costumers: Cat Warner, Lia Cinquegrano, Katie Casano, Susan Hasselbrook, Emily Boullear, Mikaela Holmes. Lead Landscaper: Judge Finklea. Landscaper: Chris Lawson. Lead Carpenter: James Bolenbaugh. Carpenters: Jamie Ven Eyck, Ryan Cheresnick. Matte Painter: Ram Bhat. Previsualization: Mike Plunkett. Fabricators: Oran Bumroongchart, Theresa Nguyen, Jason Krugman, Amanda Scuglia, Thu Tran, Akash Nihalani, Genevive Simms, Alexis Distler, Mary Kate Rex, Lily Montemarano, Mac Pohanka, Maggie Lysikiewicz, Elizabeth Heilich, Sara Greenwalt, Rebecca Bersohn, Katrina Vonnegut, Nadia Lachance, Amanda Blue, Thu Tran, Katie Widloski, Gabriel Abrantes, Alex Carver, Jenae Wilkins, Mihail Kossev, Trey Kirchoff, Nadia Lachance, Max Nova. Stereographer: Sean Hellfritsch. Digital Imaging Technician: Nick Kay. Technical Consultatant: Joel Edelstein. First AC: Bobb Lovett. Lighting Designer: Michael Yetter. Gaffer: Corey Eisenstein. Key Grip: Olivia Kuan. Grip: Danya Apt, Fletcher Wolfe, Andrew Roddewig, Kevin Phillips, Jim McGibbon. Still Photographers: Nathan Jones, Brian Derballa, Alyona Mindlin. 3d Guru: Greg Dinkins. Hair & Make-up: Andrea Helgadottir. Body Make-up: Cheyenne Timperio. Body Make-up Assistants: Nina Stewart, Loran Gurgin. Choreographer: Chris Elam of Misnomer Dance. Pain Body: Coco Karol. Björk Double: Bryne Billingsly. Lead Puppeteer: Jessica Scott. Production Coordinator: Emily Anderson. 2nd Assistant Director: Stephanie Hamilton. Production Assistants: Eli Stonberg, Jacquelyn Moses, Tiffany Chung, Danilo Parra, Brian Debralla, Mihail Kossev, Sarah Casey, Hunter Fairstone Levin, Alex Tibbets, Bobby Saferstein, Ben Bindra, Robert Montemarano, Mike Burden. Very Special Thanks: Jessica Zambri and Jennifer George. Matt Quigley. Mike Bellon, Anne Gale & the crew at Barney Studio. Matthew Barney.

How did the Björk video come to you
and what is the basic concept of the video?

Björk had seen our last music video (Grizzly Bear) and gave us a call. The concept of the video is our attempt at creating mytho-poetic cosmology of a primitive world complete with water deities and the struggle towards the future. The main theme being nomadism since it is for the track ‘Wanderlust.’

There are a number of different elements shot, or created in post, that all have to be combined, There is a large-scale, pre-human Yak-puppet, about 7-feet long and 7-feet tall, then there is Björk, then there is a version of Björk that she wears on her backpack played by a professional dancer, a large river god/transcendental beast, the landscapes shot in miniature and the CG river. So each of those elements were manifested in a completely different environment and shot differently.

Encyclopedia Pictura - interview "Making a 3D Music Video for Björk" at StudioDaily, 28 november 2007

Björk at the Wanderlust set, being interviewed by MTV.

Directing team Sean Hellfritsch and Isaiah Saxon intended to do big things for Björk with a decidedly small music video budget. But they have the right attitude for making things happen — do a lot of it yourself and depend on your friends. First, their camera of choice was 2K — 2048x1152 at 24fps — but it was not a budget-breaker, it was Silicon Imaging’s new SI-2K Mini. Along with the Mini, they got a CineForm RAW encoding license. Joel Edelstein joined the two Minis to shoot stereo.

Shooting greenscreen locally in Long Island City (Hellfritsch and Saxon lived in NYC during their months of work on the video) the two cobbled together two interesting solutions. On set they used a custom-built beam-splitter rigged up with a mirror to line up the two SI-2K Minis for proper stereo. They had to shoot their giant yak (a fanciful, very large, yak-like beast with two performers inside giving it movement and expression) from many angles so that later UVPhactory could composite it repeatedly to create a yak herd in which the yaks are seen in different positions from different angles. They also had to capture Björk’s performance in stereo: she “rides” a yak (actually two furry humps resembling the yak’s); she deals with the river water as if it’s a character unto itself — and so it is, there’s the “river god” (a live actor digitally augmented); she faces off with her own personal demon — her character’s dark side, called her “painbody” — another live performer who materializes out of Bjork’s backpack; and these characters then swirl into a vortex-like CG waterfall plummeting downward at the video’s climax.

Hellfritsch and Saxon shot Björk and her doppelganger hanging upside down so they could capture the look of their hair falling naturally.

The directing partners’ second innovation was for use in post: a wooden box of their own making allowing a polarized stereo display with a right-angle beam-splitter. Dubbed a “Vizard,” the box allowed them to quickly gauge if their two stereo streams flowed naturally into one 3D image. UVPhactory’s After Effects compositors worked in anaglyph mode — classic 3D glasses with one blue eye and one red.

Article in Post Magazine, february 2008

THE VIDEO STORY
as told by Encyclopedia Pictura to Dazed & Confused:

Björk is an archetypal nomad, shepherding giant yaks through the Mountains. She does hydromancy to decide whether to take them down a river or not.

A second self, the Painbody Backpack, sprouts from her like a growth and then engages her in an action play which displays their relationship.

The force which compelled Björk to go down river begins to manifest itself in Björk's head and in the physical world. This character, the Rivergod, is a transcendental attractor which pulls her into the future.

→ Visit Dazed & Confused

Choreographing WANDERLUST
from a Dance Perspective

Choreographing for Björk's Wanderlust video was inspiring. The two dancers who appear in the video, Coco and Brynne, dance year-round in our company Misnomer Dance Theater. After Coco showed the directors an online video of one of our works, Throw People, they felt that the movement quality matched the vision they were looking to achieve. The process of collaborating on a multi-media project with such a visionary team of artists was exhilarating. It was a really interesting to work from the director's storyboards and help solve the physical challenges in each of the shots to make the environment (puppetry, live action, and computer graphics) interact seamlessly.

Choreographer, Chris Elam
Dancers, Coco Karol & Brynne Billingsley

→ See a video of one of our dances which inspired some of the movement.
→ See other work that we've done that features the dancers from Wanderlust
→ View some photos of dance movements during the shoot (see more here):

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