Misery Has Everything is the stop motion animation commissioned by Nicholas Di Gregorio, an author and composer, to give a visual to his beautiful song. We wanted to tell a story set in the city we both live in: London, a perfect set for a song that critics brutal capitalism and consumerism. Thus I invented Mr Misery, a sort of Consumerism Ghost. He is walking on the streets of the city to go to his gloomy factory where lives are consumed and destroyed to create objects to sell, object that nobody really needs but that everybody buy trying to escape emptiness and loneliness of their lives...

video length: 3' 55''

storyboard: Andrea Aste & Nicholas Di Gregorio

animation & editing: Andrea Aste
music: Nicholas di Gregorio

Mr. Misery. Character study and the final rendering. It is a ghostly figure, gaunt and gloomy, dressed like a rich man in the Roaring Twenties. I wanted his features to be skeletal with high cheekbones and a skull like face with two big curly moustache, the only element of his face that I wanted to animate to create different expressions.  

A famous double decker of London. We wanted to capture the high energy and restlessness of the city, so I decided to give a mayor role to its iconic busses, cabs and the famous Tube, transforming them in characters.

The gloomy Factory of Mr. Misery is inspired by Battersea Power Station, an iconic landmark with a peculiar role in the history of music: it was portrayed on the cover of Animals by Pink Floyd... an album that shares many themes with this song. 

"Everything you Wish!" a dangerous advertising on the side of a most iconic Albion Lorry. I wanted to give some depth to the characterisation of London, thus I did some historical research about the British vehicles of the past discovering the brand Albion... it was love at first site!!!

A typical London Black Cab

"Somewhere Station", The Tube! We are used to take the Tube to move around London. Every day we walk in its tunnels and stations, we know them very well, don't we? Well, actually, working on this project I've realised that we see the Tube without seeing it: we don't pay so much attention to the details... So when I had to create a "typical" Tube Station I've discovered that there is not such a thing! All stations are different for style, materials, colours, energy... Thus I decided to draw a station I know very well on the Piccadilly Line, the one nearer to my home :)

Even the Trains are similar but different to each other... so I stop in a station on the Piccadilly Line and took inspiration from the first train passing by :)

The houses of London, amazing and beautiful. 

London is a huge megalopolis where every zone has its own architectonic style. When I consider which part of London to draw as a background, at first, I thought about the City with its monumental buildings... but it was too much! I preferred to illustrate every day London; I wanted to draw a place where "normal" people lives, not the one of super duper rich. So I studied the residential area built in the Victorian and Edwardian era with their peculiar style and little shops. 

The Gas Street Light is another quote to the history of the city. Some of them are still working. My favourite one is in front of The Albany, on Piccadilly Street.

London houses study. Big mansion and palaces and little shops.

The iconic red letterbox and red telephone box... Red is the primary color of London as Peter Ackroyd states in his best seller "London. The Biography". A Book that every Londoner (and London lover) should have at hands.

The most demanding part of all the animation: the Devilish Machine that transforms men in consumer goods. It was long to create and rendering this scene, so full of moving parts and special effects... but I like the result, I hope you appreciate it too :)