Switch Zookeeper Podcast 4

Share a dog's dream in this live action and stop-motion short film. The soundtrack is "Gnossienne #1" by Erik Satie, performed by the Switch Zoo Animal Orchestra.

Filmed using a circa 1980 super 8 camera, all of the animated sequences were edited in-camera one frame at a time, or for the driving sequence, shot in one second bursts.

The animated furball that starts the dream sequence required a winter's worth of collecting shed hair.

Some may consider this arrangement of the song a derangement, but the composer, Erik Satie, might appreciate this version. He and others were making music using nontraditional instruments ninety years ago. In his excellent Flabby Preludes For A Dog: An Erik Satie Primer, Kenneth Goldsmith writes "his Parade (1917), a collaboration with Jean Cocteau, Picasso, and Serge Diaghilev, rocks and rolls for 20 minutes and was the first classical work to employ a battery of sirens, car horns, typewriters, guns, and blasting percussion."

The lead instrument is a blend of a kestrel falcon and gibbon monkey, punctuated with a reedy goose bark. The snare drum is a composite of burning firewood, a shrike and a crackle of thunder. A lion snarl, a cougar snarl and a wildcat snarl blend to mimic a bass drum. The breathy, screeching trumpet-like three note refrain that ends each verse is a gibbon monkey.

To hear more animal music, visit the Switch Zoo Concert Hall.

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