MF Doom’s mask subject of animated music video by Aardman Nathan Love and Kris Merc

Director Kris Merc has worked with animation studio Aardman Nathan Love to create a video for a landmark musical collaboration between Kool Keith and MF Doom.

The video for single Super Hero uses Doom’s famous mask as a centrepiece for a multitude of vivid and detailed set designs, interspersed with shots of animated plasticine lips, neon lights, an anonymous monochrome space man, eye tests, and a whole lot more. The video cuts from one scene to the next at a frantic pace, with Doom’s rotating mask ever-present, the visuals becoming hypnotic and kaleidoscopic in the process.

“I wanted to capture something that felt like a visual pop travesty,” says Kris. “I wanted it to visually speak to the legacy of the artists, and Afrofuturism mixed with comic book concepts. I’m a fan of the unseen, and I was obsessed with the idea of using Doom’s mask and the iconography as a centralised point – as if time and space converged around these strange, sometimes magical tableaus and we were witnessing an ascension.”

Kris worked closely with Aardman Nathan Love to design, build and produce the film, using a concoction of animation styles, particularly CG.