Aardman animates The Dark Side of the Moon for Radio 2
Aardman Animations has created a short film to accompany a new BBC radio play celebrating the 40th anniversary of the seminal Pink Floyd album The Dark Side of the Moon.
Bristol-based Aardman was commissioned by Radio 2 to create a three-minute trailer and an extended looped film to complement the audio experience online and on the red button.
The result is a collage of digital imaging, CGI, studio-based effects and hand-crafted elements that reference the visual style of the album's classic artwork.
Aardman director Darren Dubicki said: "What was fundamentally important to us was that we retained a consistent visual tone that echoed the imagery created over the years for the band.
"The intensely surreal and powerful artwork created by [Pink Floyd collaborators] Storm Thorgerson and Hipgnosis has always had a strong distortion on reality. Their sense of space and twisted context make for some uncomfortably beautiful art. This tone has been consistent for decades and we wanted to honour this with our contemporary digital (and analogue) slant on the style.”
Written by Sir Tom Stoppard, The Dark Side play will air on Radio 2 on 26 August, with Bill Nighy, Iwan Rheon and Amaka Okafor among the cast.