Kevin McCrae, CD and founder at Playdead in Glasgow: “We were commissioned by Matchlight (an independent Scottish production company), to create a series of hand-drawn animations for a feature-length documentary on the famous English poet Ted Hughes, for BBC Two.

“This crow sequence was used over Hughes’ narration of an excerpt from his poem ‘Two Legends’ published in his 1970 book ‘Crow’.”

Black is the gall lying on the bed of the blood.

Black is the earth-globe, one inch under,
An egg of blackness
Where sun and moon alternate their weathers

To hatch a crow, a black rainbow
Bent in emptiness
over emptiness
But flying

 

Client: Matchlight

Production: Playdead
Animator: Ross Sneddon

Music: Apparat “Goodbye”
Voice: Ted Hughes