00:00Well we're here in Telford and we're here with, go on boss, introduce yourself.
00:04My name is Nick J Townsend, I'm the singer and guitarist for British band Week 13.
00:09How long has Week 13 been going then?
00:12We've been as a unit based in the black country since 2010.
00:19There's a little history beforehand but the same three people have been in this band now for almost 15 years.
00:28And this mess behind me is some of what's left of our band members and myself who have had a battle fighting evil in one of the brand new music videos from Week 13 which is all claymation animation.
00:47It's based on like a modern day version of Wallace and Gromit but for a modern audience so we updated it.
00:56Well I've just watched a video, we'll flash up some of the images on here.
01:00It's full on isn't it? I mean there's a lot of work.
01:03You know you watch Wallace and Gromit and they do a set and there's a scene and they might kind of stay in that for you know a minute or so.
01:11But this in keeping with the music video is like you know scene, next scene, next scene, bang, crash.
01:16Four minutes, four minutes and literally there's no time to dwell and that's the most painful part of it because you build a set.
01:23I haven't got a team to do this.
01:25My other band members are talented in other ways but they can't do animation or claymation so I did it.
01:33I haven't got a team and when we build a set and build all the characters for it,
01:39that might be in this music video for something like five seconds.
01:44Yeah.
01:44And it's frustrating because once it's gone on to the next thing I go oh I'm not going to be able to go back to that set.
01:53That was really cool.
01:54I didn't get that little bit there which I spent ages on.
01:57But the thing is it doesn't matter because if you look at any modern Hollywood set it's exactly the same way.
02:03You have set designers and they make fantastic sets and it's part of the sets which you don't see in the film.
02:09Yeah.
02:10And that's just a matter of fact so it's a miniaturised version of what Hollywood does just made out of clay.
02:19And I mean you must be well chuffed with how it's turned out.
02:23You know your first time doing like you say clay modelling stops that animation.
02:27You must be well chuffed with it.
02:28It looks excellent.
02:29I was chuffed and I got even more chuffed when in the past week I for a laugh entered it into film festivals
02:39because I haven't got any experience with animation so other animators are probably going to laugh at it whatever
02:46so I thought stick it in the film festival and see how that does.
02:52And I can only afford a few so I just entered it into ones that began with the letter B.
02:59So this week we've had five film festivals have selected us and we've had one nomination.
03:07We've got two in Birmingham, Bradford, Black Country and we've had Bangkok.
03:13We're in that one and we're just waiting for Berlin any day now.
03:17So you've been kind of doing other videos along the way because this is a very timely process.
03:24You've kind of been having to do it just in little gaps of time here and there haven't you?
03:28Yeah because we had to fool our fans and we couldn't take like a three and a half year gap.
03:34So we filmed other music videos which were really good.
03:39Yeah but it was something people wouldn't get suspicious and go hang on you haven't done anything for three years.
03:46You're either lazy or you're up to something.
03:48So when we did release this it was a bit of a shock to our fans and a lot of people because they said how did you find time to do it?
03:56But we literally I was doing this continuously in the background.
03:59I told a few friends of mine that were also musicians because I wanted to include them in the claymation.
04:07There's a fantastic band called Naked Sunday.
04:11There's the Humdrum Express.
04:13He makes an appearance with George Holland.
04:16Sorry someone that looks like George Holland.
04:19But there's lots of salutes to the modern entertainment music industry and entertainment industry.
04:27Yeah yeah so is this a new world for you?
04:30Because you said like it's took three and a half years but you said actually you learnt a lot doing it
04:34and the last the last few months on it you kind of the time it takes it kind of really sped up for you
04:40once you got your you know got the system well oiled.
04:44I could do this right now.
04:45I'm sat here I'm thinking I could just start playing with clay now.
04:49Yeah.
04:49But I've got a band to run.
04:51We've got festivals to play, songs to write.
04:54Yeah busy man.
04:55I may have a surprise in another three years but I reckon I could do it in one year I think.
05:01Yeah.
05:02If I tried hard but we'll see.
05:04I just want to basically thank everyone that supported this band and the fact that this video
05:10has been selected in film festivals now international.
05:15Hopefully we'll enter more.
05:19I guess we will.
05:19But the thing is it's been a journey and the journey is still going so who knows you may
05:26see a longer version of a week 13 claymation.
05:29Yeah.
05:30Well check it out guys.
05:31So if people want to find the song online on YouTube what do they type in week 13?
05:35All one word W-E-A-K-1-3.
05:39The music video is a single from our double album which came out this year which is out
05:47everywhere and the song from the album is called Unpopular and this apparently is becoming
05:55popular.
05:56The music video is unpopular as a title but we hope it remains popular.
06:04Well well done.
06:06Awesome work and we look forward to your creative outputs in future sir.
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