Guy Verge Wallace

Watch the video for Australian indie rock band Papa Vs Pretty’s track Wrecking Ball and we guarantee that you’ll be stunned to find out it’s the effort of just one 19-year-old animator and director working almost single-handedly.

But for Sydney-based Guy Verge Wallace, this promo was a labour of love as well as an opportunity to break into music videos. Combining live action settings with stop motion animation and contrasting traditional techniques with modern special effects, the video follows the deterioration and demise of a well-to-do family at the hands of their own consumption.

“The original concept behind Wrecking Ball was inspired by an image from a short scene in Pink Floyd’s film The Wall,” reveals Verge Wallace, “in which a conservative husband and wife eat dinner in a moodily lit room. This led me to thoughts that the husband and wife were like rich rulers, living chauvinistic lives, consuming everything, including the peasants, the land, the crops, the universe.

The inspiration for the style came, in many ways, from [Czech filmmaker] Jan Švankmajer. I wanted to bring his old-fashion look into the new age, juxtaposing glitch art (in particular datamoshing) with the life-size stop-motion animated characters. The film is really about this family’s conservatism and their repressed emotion.”

The project came about after Verge Wallace heard the track from up-and-coming band Papa Vs Pretty and, already keen to make a music video, he felt the track was the perfect fit. After emailing the band with his ideas they got back in touch immediately and the project was off the ground.

After gradually building the life-size models while finishing up his studies for the year, Verge Wallace then spent five weeks animating and filming – with just the help of DP Jose Alkon for a few days – and then another five weeks working on the post production. And the hard work has paid off too, but this isn’t Verge Wallace’s first taste of success.

In fact you could call him something of a filmmaking child prodigy. He’s already picked up the Best Film award at the first ever Tropfest Junior, as well as prizes at the Kids International Film Festival and Heart of Gold International Film Festival. He may only be a youthful 19 years of age, but he’s got years of directing experience behind him.

“It was a hobby I always had as a child and couldn’t get rid of. My dad is a film and TV director,” he explains. “I’ve loved drawing ever since I could lift a pencil. My love of animation came a little later.

For my tenth birthday my parents gave me LEGO Studios. It became a way to make any movie I wanted without any restraints. I had already been playing with my dad’s camcorder for a few years and also played with the stickfigure animation program Pivot as a child.”

And with a first spot for Red Bull under his belt now too, it’s a calling he’s going to keep following: “I have many, many hopes. I’m full of ideas for almost every format of filmmaking,” sums up Verge Wallace. We look forward to seeing what’s next.