News
Gonzo Animates Dream Theater's "Forsaken" Music Video
posted on by Egan Loo
The Japanese animation studio Gonzo and director Yasufumi Soejima (the unreleased Mardock Scramble project) have created a music video for the Dream Theater metal band's song "Forsaken," and the video will premiere on MTV2's Headbanger's Ball program in the United States on Saturday night. The video is already available on the Headbanger's Blog on the MTV website. The video's executive producer Joey Goubeaud of Amusement Park Media coordinated the efforts between Dream Theater and Gonzo.
According to an question-and-answer session provided by the music video's producers, the band based the song on Ivan Turgenev's "Phantoms" short story about an enigmatic woman who haunts a man as he travels the world. However, instead of the 19th century setting of the short story, the band agreed with Soejima's decision to place the music video in a future science-fiction setting. Soejima said the video's male lead is an innocent man abandoned and jailed by an "inhumane world." The female lead (who is described as "an apparition, a restless soul, an evil spirit, a sylphide, a vampire" or something else entirely in Turgenev's story) is "an android that was made as the toy of [an] ancient regime."
Soejima had previously worked with the American band Linkin Park, The Stranglers of England, and the Japanese musician Perfume. (Linkin Park created the "Breaking the Habit" music video with another Japanese animation firm, Studio 4°C.) Notably, Jean-Jacques Burnel of The Stranglers contributed several pieces to the soundtrack of Gonzo's Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo, an anime series for which Soejima was the digital director and textile designer. Soejima said he would like to do more music videos in the future.
Special thanks to ADV Films for providing ANN with the news.
Update: Noted, on a suggestion by Sam Murai, that Mardock Scramble was cancelled before release.
