MR BEN ANIMATION

I created a stop-motion music video for Mr Ben and the Bens, built around a nostalgic, slightly uncanny visual style. The puppets were made from scraps of leather collected from a local upholstery workshop, cut using a combination of metal shapes, a stamping press, and hand tools. Drawing on my time as a shoemaker, I worked directly with the leather to shape soft, childlike characters whose sweetness leaned into something subtly eerie.

The story follows Ben as he forgets about an upcoming gig, racing to retrieve his guitar from an old well before being carried across the landscape by a flock of birds. I designed, built, and animated every element myself, using Dragonframe to complete the piece within a tight two-week schedule. The project was an opportunity to explore stop-motion as a material-driven process, where the texture and history of the leather shaped both the characters and the tone of the animation.