A few months back, Ira Marcks, a New York-based cartoonist, contacted me about his recent collaboration with Jake Lodwick (the founder of Vimeo) regarding an experimental illustration/animation project featuring music composed by The Few Moments. Before or after you read this email interview with Marcks about the project, I invite you to watch the score (embedded below) as its an ambitious and intriguing concept on many levels. Now on with the interview (and my thanks to Marcks for contacting me in the first place).

MARCH 3 from Jake Lodwick on Vimeo.

Tim O’Shea: Among the three main factions in this project, Jake Lodwick, The Few Moments and yourself–whom approached whom about this project. How did you settle upon the term “illustrative score” for the project?

Ira Marcks: The process began with The Few Moments making a record called “March 3″ for Jake Lodwick. At the time (2008) Jake had a record label called Normative through which he would release music by his artists in unconventional ways. The idea for this release was to have the music be accompanied by “one long, scrolling illustration”. Those are Jake’s words. It’s all the direction I was really given on the project. First thing that came to mind was Trajan’s Column in Rome. It’s covered from bottom to top in a bas-relief that scrolls around the column and tells the story of an ancient war. I imagined this project would be something of an automated version of that concept.

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