Video Preview: Ian Cooke’s “Cassowary & Fruit Bat”

A story popped into cello prog-pop songwriter Ian Cooke's head after viewing a diorama at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. The diorama, called “Australia,” featured cassowaries on the ground and fruit bats in the trees. The result of Cooke's museum visit is the love story between an unlikely pair in his heart-rending song, "Cassowary & Fruit Bat," featured on the November 2011 album Fortitude. Animator Adam Singer was similarly inspired when he first heard "Cassowary & Fruit Bat."

As a result, Singer and Cooke have been collaborating on an animated video for the song, not an easy task considering its length, nearly six-minutes.

Together, Cooke and Singer built physical plants, trees, and background elements for the video, and shot them against a blue-screen. For months, Singer has been animating the "Cassowary & Fruit Bat" characters and placing them within the world Cooke and Singer created.

The whole process has been documented by producer Ian O'Dougherty, who is editing a documentary of the year-long process, and also this 4-minute preview of the video in progress:

The trio is also considering releasing several items to coincide with the release of the video, and would like YOUR opinion on which ones to release:

Click here to start the poll to help them decide.

Cooke has been busy since the release of Fortitude in late 2011. He collaborated with a group of singers aged nine to 16 called 303 Choir in a half-hour documentary "ALL AGES", and he is playing with Paper Bird in their groundbreaking collaboration with Ballet Nouveau in “Carry On” this month.