This Is What Happened When 7 Animators Tried to Make a Video for the Same Song

Each animation gives Simon Pyke's brilliant composition a unique coat of paint.

by Beckett Mufson

August 24, 2016, 3:20pm

Screencap from Kay Tenneman's 'Aviation', via

Seven different worlds dance to one tune in the 30 Seconds of Sound, a case study documenting the different ways humans think about music. Composer Simon Pyke charged seven young animators to visualize a short composition designed to be an "engaging piece with a feeling of narrative for people to respond to." Each animation is just 30 seconds long, but Pyke—well-practiced at crafting animation-friendly compositions for MTV, his own company Freefarm, and his brother Matt Pyke's group, Universal Everything—weaves a tapestries of moods and tempos for the artists to work with. "I intentionally tried to use sounds which weren't overly prescriptive to leave things open to interpretation," Pyke tells The Creators Project.

The fourth edition of 30 Seconds of Sound dropped last month, bringing together animators including Peter Clark (previously) and Jason Drew (previously). Clark interpreted Pyke's arrangement by visualizing Earth's scientists picking up the sound of two black holes devouring one another 1.4 billion years ago. Mixing a combination of NASA public models, photogrammetry of circuit boards, and a 2001: A Space Odyssey-inspired tunnel effect, Clark gives the 30 seconds of sound an etherial, otherworldly characterization. The behind-the-scenes video, dropped last week, is almost as trippy as the animation itself.

Drew similarly sets his short in space, envisioning the refueling of futuristic spacecraft, but other concepts include enchanted forests, digital art galleries, and abstract forms, all reacting to the same harmonies. Pyke's declared mission with 30 Seconds of Sound is to "[explore] the power of sound on the imagination." Explore away in the animations below.