Get smart curated videos delivered to your inbox.   SUBSCRIBE
The Kid Should See This

I’m Only Sleeping: Em Cooper’s 1,300 oil painting animation for The Beatles

Watch more with these video collections:

Emmy-nominated director Em Cooper specializes in fluid animations created from hand-painted oil paintings. Her 2022 music video for The Beatles‘ “I’m Only Sleeping” pairs her signature animation style with the song’s dreamlike reflections on the world. From It’s Nice That:

“’I began with the thought that this would simply be John [Lennon] drifting in and out of sleep, flowing between wakefulness and memory and peppered with surreal moments, dipping into the history of The Beatles,’ Em says.”

laughing together

“‘But the meanings of the film soon began to spread out, encompassing The Beatles’ anti-war feelings, and reflecting on our place in the world.’

“The animator continues: ‘It was a project that I felt an immediate spark for right from the word go, and somehow that momentum carried me right through to the end.”

glasses
singing, sleeping
The animation required 1,300 individually painted oil paintings, a formidable frame-by-frame process that took months. Cooper concludes:

“The song itself evokes such a mesmerising, languid, dreamy state, in a way my job was only to follow its lead with a paintbrush in my hand.’”

clouds blankets
From 1960 to 1970, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr recorded 13 albums as The Beatles. “I’m Only Sleeping” was first released in 1966 on their album Revolver. This animated music video celebrates the album’s 2022 Special Edition release.

Find Em Cooper on Instagram and at EmCooper.com.

Watch these music videos next:
White Out, an abstract watercolor animation by Jeff Scher
Color Is a Beautiful Thing, Nina Simone animated
• Katie Melua’s Perfect World, a wintry adventure
Shugo Tokumaru’s Katachi
Vitamin String Quartet’s Venus As A Boy, a paper animation

Bonus: Van Gogh’s Starry Night painted on dark water by Garip Ay.

via Colossal.

This Webby award-winning video collection exists to help teachers, librarians, and families spark kid wonder and curiosity. TKSST features smarter, more meaningful content than what's usually served up by YouTube's algorithms, and amplifies the creators who make that content.

Curated, kid-friendly, independently-published. Support this mission by becoming a sustaining member today.

🌈 Watch these videos next...

White Out, an abstract watercolor animation by Jeff Scher

Rion Nakaya

We Can Be Ghosts Now by Hiatus featuring Shura

Rion Nakaya

Vitamin String Quartet’s Venus As A Boy, a paper animation

Rion Nakaya

Una Giornata Perfetta (A Perfect Day)

Rion Nakaya

Three Primary Colors, an instant classic by Sesame Street & OK Go

Rion Nakaya

Shugo Tokumaru’s Katachi

Rion Nakaya

Royal Canoe – Bathtubs

Rion Nakaya

Patouille, a delightful animation by Clémentine Campos

Rion Nakaya