King Wray

In a noir world, sickened by climate change and exploding with colour, our film tells the story of Nate and his intense relationship with his cult musician father - ‘King Wray’ - who concealed his face with a mask. After an intense debut, he had an accident that confined him to a wheelchair for life, so he covered it up and disappeared into oblivion. Twenty years later, King Wray resurfaces and contacts Nate – his illegitimate son – with a proposition. To wear his mask and imitate him onstage – creating a surprise King Wray comeback together with him. Nate agrees, and they set off on a nationwide tour. It begins well as Nate relishes the limelight, but as King Wray mentors his son, he becomes jealous and obsessed with controlling him. Nate struggles to take over, as King Wray descends into drug-fuelled bitterness. Unable to endure King Wray's abuse, Nate finally stands up to his father. He blows the lid off the unsustainable charade and ends up killing King Wray, both literally and figuratively.

Director’s statement
We want to tell a story about a failing world and the perils of identification between generations, using a one-of-a-kind hybrid animation technique. We ask – how hard can it be to break away from bad parental influence if your father is a cult figure revered by many? And even more so when you are asked to wear his mask and embody a legend? Within the context of modern society, the dangers of repeating our parents’ mistakes is seen acutely with the problem of global warming. King Wray represents the old guard, a symbol of the excessive, hedonistic generation intent on maintaining control and imposing it upon younger generations. His demise at the hands of his son Nate symbolises the death of old ideals, and the need for today’s youth to kill this toxic pattern and reinvent themselves, however tempting the status quo may be. We have chosen this attractive context of the music world to be a vehicle for our animation, an intense and entertaining rollercoaster ride laced with warning.