Hak Baker Creates a Sensory Overload in Latest Video Using AI and Stop Motion Animation

The most you’ll see of Hak Baker in the 'Telephones 4 Eyes' video is his mouth from inside a stomach. One that delivers lyrics with urgency, amongst the visual delirium created by Hugh Mulhern, to match the pace of Hak’s frantic social commentary. 

While the lyrics have a distinctly 1984 slant, it’s a video that could only be made in 2023; splicing together stop motion animation, found footage, live action, and AI-generated sequences to create a sensory overload. 

Hugh Mulhern said “Myself and Hak working together has been something bubbling for quite some time. The brief was wonderfully open and Hak wanted directors to push it as far as they could. I’m always a bit sceptical when people say that, so I gave Hak a buzz and asked him “how far can we go?” and he said, “go as mad as you can!” 

If I told you I had an initial rationale for everything in the video and it was all carefully figured out, I’d be lying. In truth it was one of those ideas that came together almost instantaneously. I think that’s to do with how clear Hak’s ideas are in the song. Tetsuo the Iron Man was a key image and I also think the inside of [the song’s producer] Dan Carey’s studio played a part in inspiring our phone thief’s lab. HR Giger meets Abe’s Odyssey circa this weird stop motion cartoon called Mr Bumpy.

We spent hours figuring out what found footage felt right and was obscure enough to feed the sensation of over stimulation. We intentionally wanted to steer away from doing anything that felt too political or pointed when the song was carrying that message so effectively (maybe I’ve matured since wanting to set fire to Boris)

Things went off the deep end in the final few days of the video. We sent some stuff over to Dom (infinite.vibes) to create AI sequences stylistically informed by the stop motion animation and what he sent back far exceeded my expectations. It’s my favourite thing I’ve made to date and all I wanna do now is expand on the techniques we experimented with.”