Published February 16, 2024 by Mike Goldstein
Those of you who are aware of my professional background might recall an item on my CV that describes the few years I spent working for a traditional cartoon animation company and, since I began writing articles for the ACHOF site that dig deeper into the inspirations of those creatives working at the intersection of this field and the music business, I’ve written several items about people I’ve seen who’ve worked hard to bring motion to what are typically seen as static works of art via animation.
Back in 2006, at the very beginning of the reporting I’d do for the RockPoP Gallery website – reporting that, several years later, when I’d morph into the ACHOF site, introduced you to Rohitash Rao (principal of a firm called Uglypictures), who’d produced an MTV-worthy cartoon/music video he called “Battle of the Album Covers”, which brought several dozen album cover images from various genres to life and pitted them in a battle of survival, with several of your favorites disfigured and/or destroyed via a number of weapons either derived from items found within those famous images or introduced in some other fashion (e.g., a scene where Billy Joel, as seen on the cover of 52nd Street fires a machine-gun at Rick James (on the cover of Street Songs), with Eminem finally shooting James in the head, spilling blood on Joe Jackson’s Look Sharp shoes…and that’s just the beginning.
Later on, in late 2014, I presented another of several individuals I found who’d worked to bring a number of our favorite covers to life either as “animated .gifs” or more fully-fleshed-out video creations. In October of that year, I interviewed one animator – Juan Betancourt – who had received a lot of attention for his Tumblr site featuring an ever-growing collection of both classic and more-recent animated covers and asked him to give us a look behind the scenes into his efforts to add new abstractions to already-familiar cover images.
As the tools for production at all levels – pro tools all the way down to apps for your mobile phone – improved greatly over the years, enabling many others to test out their skills in the area, I’d find examples of animated album art from time to time, and in my January, 2021 newsletter, I’d made note of the fact that Apple Music had promoted the idea to content creators and their marketing departments as a way of “adding value” to their musical product offerings, with some musical acts responding to the challenge with some really creative living album art (for example, one developed for Grammy-winning songwriter/musician Fraser T Smith’s “Future Utopia” project (titled 12 Questions), which debuted on the Apple Music platform with an Ori Toor-illustrated cover brought impressively to life by the team of Pentagram’s Abbott Miller (design/creative direction) and animation firm 1983’s Robin Burke. Visual representations derived from each of the record’s twelve songs was given part of the overall design, with each segment presenting itself to the viewer in a unique way.
Fast forward to late 2023 and, once again, my eye was caught by an article I found on an animated project put out there by a design team operating under the moniker Dog & Rabbit that brought us back full-circle to 2006 and the “battle of the album covers” motif. Rather than an all-out war between dozens of album covers from a similar number of different musical acts, the producers of this video short decided to have covers by two of the best-known rock and roll acts – The Beatles and the Rolling Stones (both with long histories of packaging their records in sleeves sporting best-in-class imagery) – fight to the death for album art superiority in The Beatles vs The Stones – https://vimeo.com/872245830 (spoiler alert – Peace and Love wins out). Taken as I was by the extraordinary animation, I knew that I’d have to get to the bottom of who was behind this project and what inspired them to do it, so after a bit of research, I found a social media page for one of the company’s principals, Andrew Kelleher, and asked him if he’d be up for a bit of an interview. The Holidays interrupted progress for a bit, but Andrew was kind enough to answer my questions and provide me with a bit of background…
Interview with Andrew Kelleher, Principal of Dog & Rabbit – via email Jan/Feb, 2024 –
Mike Goldstein, AlbumCoverHallofFame.com – Andrew, it is really great to finally connect with you and to be able to ask you about the details of what inspired you to make this film and how you went about making it. So, let’s cut to the chase – was there a particular event or experience that served as the inspiration to do this animated video?
Andrew Kelleher, Dog & Rabbit – I like animating – which is lucky because it’s my job – and so, between paid jobs I try out new styles and techniques to keep on learning my trade. It’s why I regularly set myself little projects that I actually enjoy doing, and it always makes sense to make something that other people might want to see. I love music and comedy and doing silly stuff in Photoshop, so it made sense.
Mike G – With all of the new tools and techniques available to professionals like you, it does make sense to practice, practice, practice…So, tell me, did you grow up with an admiration of great album cover artwork and the people that made it?
Andrew K – Like everyone else, I like nice images. Some of these album covers are beautiful and iconic and some are just interesting documents of their time. It was lovely working with them all though – and taking liberties with them. I haven’t grown up with a deep love of album art like most of your readers, because I grew up with cassettes and then CDs. We had a copy of Physical Graffiti by Led Zeppelin in the house that I used to love staring at. But the records were up on a high shelf, so I didn’t form the strongest bond with them. Never trust a child with double albums. They’re beautiful things, though. Of course.
MG – Can you please describe the basic production process used to create The Beatles vs The Stones video? For example, how did you choose which records would be included, and how long did the production process take from concept to finished product?
AK – It was an idea I had in my mind for a very long time, but I knew that it’d be such a large amount of work that there was never a good time to start it. But one day in the Dog & Rabbit office, when the paid work was mostly under control, I started on the Abbey Road album cover. I bought a cheap Matchbox Volkswagen Beetle and stop-framed it on a green screen background. I did my hand separately and added them together along with cardboard cutouts of The Beatles on the crossing – they were made from the simple 3D in After Effects. That album cover is a favourite of mine because I have crossed the crossing so many times getting the bus to school. The road I grew up on is almost visible on the cover – just two roads up on the George Harrison side of the photo.
After that, I didn’t get many chances to add to it, but the idea was growing in my head and I was constantly writing notes down on my phone. The whole thing took over a year and a half but would have been much, much quicker if paid work didn’t get in the way. I can’t really complain about getting paid to animate, though.
Most of the animation is in a photo cut-out style – often called “photo montage” – where we take an album cover into Photoshop and chop each section out that we want to move. We then add joints and details, etc. For example, on a face, you need to chop out the individual top and bottom eyelids so you can get them blinking, and then create a full eyeball so the eye can look around. You then need to backfill the detail behind the head so the character can move without leaving a head-shaped hole. This is all stuff that has very recently got much easier to do thanks to updates in Photoshop, but it took the bulk of the time for us. I kind of enjoy the boring processes sometimes though – that’s when you can switch your brain off and turn the music right up.
I did most of the photo cut-out animation, I also had help on some covers – including the album Help – from Hannah Brewerton. Sanjana Chandrasekhar did a lot of the drawn stuff, such as the dancing Stones Voodoo man that rides the Yellow Submarine. They were junior animators at the time who were both brilliant then and are even more so now.
MG – As a former producer myself, it was always great to find new talent to see what they’d add that was new and exciting. When you look back, do you think that your approach to these works was influenced by anyone else’s animation or film work? If so, how were those works influential and how did they show up in your final product? Had you seen the earlier animated album cover shorts and/or animated GIFs by Rohitash Rao (“Battle of The Album Covers” by Ugly Pictures in 2006), Juan Betancourt and/or Robin Burke’s more-recent work for Pentagram/Apple?
AK – I am unusual as an animator in that I don’t really watch much animation. I prefer making animations more than watching them. So, I should have seen the two films you just mentioned but I haven’t… until now. They’re good.
The main influence of my work is getting away with not drawing anything. I did a degree in illustration and managed to get away with not drawing anything for the whole course.
Terry Gilliam of Monty Python is obviously the godfather of this style of animation. Some of the things he did all those years ago are still entirely brilliant and mind blowing today and would have been unbelievably time consuming to do at the time. They’re a real labour of love.
My motivation for animation is always to try and do something I find funny that will also make other people laugh.
MG – As someone who spent several years in the animation production business, I always want folks to get a good understanding of the real work that it takes to do something to the level you have in this project. Were any covers harder to animate than others, or did you find some that just would not work in the final product? Was this produced as a traditional film/animation – i.e., storyboards, scripts, post-production, etc., or did you find yourself doing things differently because of the subject material?
AK – No storyboards were needed. That’s the beauty of working on something like this, i.e., making it for yourself – you don’t have to explain anything to anyone. I had all the ideas in my head and just got stuck into animating them and putting them all together. Storyboards can be useful, of course, but they are about explaining something that’s yet to be made – so you may as well just make it yourself and work it out as you go along. It’s more fun that way.
Some album covers were harder to animate than others, but I didn’t skip over covers for that reason – I just spent more time on them. Steel Wheels by the Rolling Stones took the longest. The cake fight scene was a tough bit to work out, too, with all those different album covers intertwining their movements.
MG – Here’s another technical question for you. What sort of equipment was used to create the final product? Any special camera, materials, PC/Mac, software, etc.? Did the use of these items affect the finished product?
AK – Most of the work was in Photoshop. Setting the files up for animation actually takes longer than animating them. We then animate them using Adobe After Effects. Those were the two main tools. The drawn elements were done in a program called Flash, and the stop-motion bits were shot on my phone in a program called O-Snap which is free – or very cheap – and very brilliant. All the covers and bits were then assembled on my PC in After Effects.
MG – What fun, and so much easier than flying to Japan or Taiwan to sit and watch cells being hand-painted for several months…Now, let’s get to know you and your cohorts a little better. Can you please give me a little background on the team that created this work? Can you list some of your previous projects and experience working with music industry clients? Any special personal interests in different forms of animation and/or music/music video production, etc.? And, of course, in your opinion, what is it about your experiences and/or artistic and musical passions that serve to differentiate your work from others in your field?
AK – Dog and Rabbit are Andrew and Dave, and we have worked together for over twenty years. We are called Dog & Rabbit because Dave used to animate a cartoon strip called Bastard Bunny that appeared in the NME (New Music Express) and 2000AD. And I used to animate a cartoon called Dog Judo that was some kind of viral sensation for Virgin Media when launched, and then appeared semi-regularly on Channel 4 here in the U.K. We have earned our living doing lots and lots of commercial animations, and in our spare time, we love to do joyous work with no messages other than fun, such as Beatles Vs Stones.
Here is Dog & Rabbit’s latest project…
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C2Mg49htcfs/?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
MG – I always end my interviews with people “in the business” with a few specific questions, so please indulge me this time, too. First, with the electronic delivery of music products now serving as the principal way to bring music to their fans, are you noticing any more or less enthusiasm from your clients to invest time and money in multi-media promotions that stand out?
AK – I have been animating for twenty years but have only made one music video. This one was made for The Beta Band about twenty years ago –https://vimeo.com/298184354 – so, on a professional level, I haven’t noticed any difference as we don’t tend to get many jobs involving music.
MG – Do you think that album and CD covers – that is, music product packaging in all its forms – still influence the purchase of music products at retail? What are your feelings about the quality of the album artwork and design you see these days? Are there any designers or musical acts that either/both influenced your work during your career and/or you think are keeping the field alive or important? Do you think album art matters anymore?
AK – Great art will always stand out. Even on the scale of a thumbnail – that tiny image will still make an album stand out amongst the other thumbnails if it’s good enough. But it will be very hard for an album cover to gain that place in the cultural consciousness like they used to. But music videos are more prominent than they were (in the golden age of album covers) so there are other ways for people to show their visually artistic side.
MG – Andrew, thanks so much for your time. Keep up the great work!
LAST MINUTE BONUS GOOD NEWS! – As I was getting ready to publish this article, Andrew shared the news that he and his team have been nominated for an award in the “Wildcard” category at the upcoming (March 7th) British Animation Awards for their “The Beatles vs The Stones” animation. Of course, I’ll let you know if/when they win but, in the meantime, if you’d like to see all of the nominees in all of the categories, please visit – https://www.britishanimationawards.com/baa-2024-nominations/
About our interviewee – Andrew Kelleher – and his studio, Dog & Rabbit –
(as taken from the D&R website) “A special squad of very talented individuals, expert in 2D and 3D animation, stop frame, design and motion graphics. This core team is supported by specialist associates called in on a project-by-project basis. We work across multimedia – print, broadcast, video, online, installations and projections. We are quick and effective and can be engaged at any point of a project from conception to execution. We get in and out quickly and get the business done on schedule. So if you have a job that needs something special, maybe you can hire Dog and Rabbit.
Dog and Rabbit have created animated commercials and films for Sainsburys, Zeek, Tic Tacs, Nature, Food Network, Travel Channel, Virgin Media, BBC, C4, Puma, VW, Kronenbourg, Marmite, Innocent, Radio Shack and many more. We animated the first series of Modern Toss, have made over 120 episodes of Dog Judo and created a bespoke animation for the Graeae Theatre Co with Sir Peter Blake.”
Andrew Kelleher – Director and Animator; Dave Anderson – Producer
Dog & Rabbit is located in Bedford Row, London, UK – dogandrabbit.com
Unless otherwise noted, all text and images included in this article are Copyright 2024 Mike Goldstein (AlbumCoverHallofFame.com) – All Rights Reserved. Except as noted, all images included to illustrate this story are the work product of the artists – Andrew Kelleher and Dave Anderson of Dog & Rabbit (London, UK) – Copyright 2023-24, all rights reserved – and were used by the artist’s permission. “Photoshop”, “Flash” and “After Effects” are trademarked products of Adobe Corp. – All rights reserved. All other trade names mentioned in this article are the properties of their respective owners and are used for reference only.
Album Cover Hall of Fame.com 