P.E.I. musician Dylan Menzie's new music video looks at life through the eyes of a turtle

For Island musician Dylan Menzie, new beginnings and life's challenges are best expressed through the eyes of a turtle.

Menzie is collaborating with Island director and graphic design artist Aidan Searle on a new music video for his single, Wild, off his forthcoming third album.

"A turtle's life really kind of captures that essence really well — where it's like very traumatizing in the beginning of its life ... you're getting berated by seagulls and just trying to hatch and get from the shore out into the ocean," Menzie said.

A dreamy seascape

The music video will fuse together a mixture of collages and stop-motion animation to create a dreamy seascape, Menzie said.

Menzie first experienced the magic of Searle's animation when he stumbled upon Jenni & The Hummingbird's lyric video for the song, Dark Horse, released in 2018.

The animation style echoed the quality of music videos released by folk artists like Fleet Foxes — a band Menzie considers to be a huge influence on his own music.

It didn't take Menzie long before he reached out to Searle in March, through social media, with the hopes of convincing him to collaborate on a music video.

"I'm super excited. It's been a long time since I've put out a music video and I've never put out an animated video," Menzie said.  

A winning pair

Searle is a graduate of Holland College's graphic design program. In 2017, he was the P.E.I. regional winner of the BMO 1st Art! Competition for his digital print titled, A Year in Review.

Earlier this spring, Menzie and Searle's music video was selected to receive a grant from the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television's Music Video Production Project.

Recipients of the grant were awarded between $5,000 and $15,000. 

The pair is hoping to have the music video completed by August, Menzie said, with the expectation that the album will drop in March 2020.

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