Animator, artist and comic book creator Randyl Bishop’s animation in music videos for the California band The Silvers is “out of this world” – which also is the name of a recent project he worked on.
The Blythe resident has worked as art director and lead animator for several of The Silvers’ projects.
“Everything that is up on the Silvers YouTube channel, I am lead animator for,” he said.
The Silvers’ lyrics for their award-winning “Out of this World” allude to heading out of this world in a figurative sense and being crazy in love.
The group’s sound is similar to the Beach Boys or the classic South Carolina beach music sound like The Platters, coupled with the beats of “The Beatles.”
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Bishop’s co-directed animated video uses a literal interpretation of going out of this world – an alien spaceship. He still manages to bring love issues into the animation, though, with some of the characters, including a pirate and his mermaid-esque ghost love interest who has tentacles instead of a fish tail.
Some of the animation is reminiscent of 60s and 70s cartoon ads — particularly ones for certain canned seafood brands, Hanna-Barbera and classic television animation of that time period.
“Oh, absolutely. I have all of those as influences – especially Hanna-Barbera. All of the time, we make references to mostly 60s pop culture but do reference the 70s and other decades. In the most recent video, there is a reference to the Johnny Quest cartoon from the 60s,” he said.
Bishop said another influence on his animation is the “Super Friends” cartoon with their bright colors and spot-on composition.
“The colors and arrangement of the figures on screen is good. They could not be too violent as they were a Saturday morning cartoon, but they still had to convey action,” he said.
Bishop also brings reworked or re-imagined vintage ads from the Space Race of the 60s into parts of the “Out of this World” video where the aliens are conquering the earth. And it’s as if he has pulled those ads straight from vintage comics.
The song the “Out of This World” video is based on may be figuratively going out of this world in other ways. According to their website this month, The Silvers’ single “Out of this World” has been getting played by at least 10 major radio-stations worldwide. Back in March, The Silvers received The Akademia Music Award for Best Rock Song for “Out of This World.”
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Bishop’s animation for the video has had almost 11,000 views on YouTube.
In this video, the second in a series, Bishop’s daughter (playing a young reader going to the library) drops the comic she picked up from the library in the first video in the series on the way home. Then, the panels open to reveal an alien conquest in progress.
In the video, Bishop has a kind of green laser being fired from the aliens’ metallic spaceship. As the young reader character reads the comic, the wall between reader and content is broken, and her face glows green, reflecting the laser fire. This is an effect Bishop said came from his son holding some kind of green laser pen off camera and carefully shining it on Bishop’s daughter’s face.
Bishop said, “This last effort (with the spaceship) integrated 3-D elements from me for the first time. I received a certificate in 3-D Arts from a distance learning university. I wanted to put in a 3-D element because I had the capacity to do that.”
Bishop’s other animations are 2-D, hand-drawn and edited on a computer.
“I use the Adobe Creative Suite. I will hand-draw the figures, scan them in and edit them in Photoshop as required,” he said. Bishop later added, “I will call it a hybrid process and leave it at that.”
Some live action parts of the videos were shot at the Blythe Library, chosen for its historical beauty, and surrounding areas. Bishop said proximity to his house and better control of the environment. There was at least one thing on film that was not part of the Blythe Library, however.
“The comic book rack is one that I actually brought into the library. If you look very closely at the rack, those are all independent comics that my friends and I produce,” Bishop said.
Bishop said, “The Blythe Library used to be a bank, and Blythe is Every Town, U.S.A. Riding bikes (which his daughter does in the video) and reading comics (which she also does) is very Americana. It’s something I did as a kid.”
Bishop, who is active in CSRA comic book stores and con events regionally and nationally, also said Juan Carlos Quattordio and he are on the current animation team.
Bishop added that most of the initial character designs for the animation from The Silvers’ videos were from past contributor Allen Belk.
However, he said, “Everything that is up on the Silvers YouTube Channel I am lead animator for.”
Trevor Hawkins was also listed as a past contributor.
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Bishop’s daughter stars in the live action part of the video filmed by her father, and the video itself was directed by Bishop and Juan Carlos Quattordio.
Bishop said, “I would be remiss not to mention Juan Carlos Quattordio, without which I’d never be able to do the videos to such a high degree of success. Juan has been a great friend and mentor throughout our endeavors together too. But the videos would not exist at all without the genius music produced primarily by Mick Orton and the guys in the band. Mr. Orton is the one who has commissioned these videos and has quite the pedigreed legacy when it comes to music. It’s been awesome working for and with these guys.”
He said in that video that he was intentionally trying for an animation style where there were not as many cells in sequence as in, for example, a Disney animated feature.
The video is in keeping with the band’s style, a band that has been around since at least the 70s in different forms.
Bishop said, “If the animation looks smooth, it’s Juan. If it’s choppy, it’s usually me. Choppy is the goal when your resource material is from the 1960s and early 1970s.”
“The band has been around for a while, so they are going to have an older point of view on some things which influences their overall style,” Bishop said.
He said, “The Silvers still have a desire to be as popular as ‘The Beatles.”
Bishop is an Army veteran who has run his own business, The Art of Randyl Bishop, for more than five years. His publishing imprint, Timebound Entertainment, produces titles such as “Killing Time,” “The Ambassador” and his flagship comic book now on its seventh installment, “The Hawk of New York.”
For more information on ordering Bishop’s new comic, “Silvers: Up, Out and Back,” see https://artofrandylbishop.storenvy.com. The “Out of this World” video is available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_aJmL7Eo0M.
Ron Baxley Jr. is a correspondent for The Augusta Press.
