“A man and his boulder…a journey through time.” So begins director Kimberly Stuckwisch’s description to her director’s cut (with Melora Donoghue) for “On The Road To Find Out,” an allegorical interpretation of the song by Yusuf/Cat Stevens. Re-recorded by Stevens for the 50th anniversary re-release of his classic album Tea for the Tillerman, Stuckwisch filmed the music video for this new take on the song in her trademark style, blending stunning locations with ingenious practical effects to create a singular vision.
Filmed on the coastal sand dunes of Pismo Beach in California, a boulder amalgamated from household appliances and other manmade scrap gradually grows in size as a man (Viet Dang) drags it across figurative “sands of time.” Grimacing as the ever-increasing weight slows his gait to a crawl, objects from centuries past fly through the desert and cling to this rock, a burden he has chosen to carry.
Viet Dang drags the burden of man’s progress behind him in Yusuf/Cat Stevens “On The Road To Find Out” (Director’s Cut) by Kimberly Stuckwisch & Melora Donoghue
“The video is an allegory for humanity’s journey for self-discovery and the historical events, art, and music that have influenced life and culture,” says Stuckwisch. “Through the video, we follow a man pulling a boulder that increasingly grows to represent these influences. It’s a story of our ability to break free from these burdens and our will to find inner peace.”
The fully COVID-compliant production was filmed in the summer of 2020 with a crew of ten, using all-natural light with no generators or electricity. Ensuring the music video’s carbon footprint was as small as possible, all the props used to create the boulder were donated for recycling after the production wrapped.
Kimberly commissioned me to create hand-drawn titles & credits. Having collaborated with her before on videos for Broken Bells, Jeremy Ivey & Margo Price, we had developed an ease to envisioning what these sequences would look like in the final cut – almost before I would even put pen to paper!
End credits for “On The Road To Find Out” (Director’s Cut); Chisel-tip pen on paper.
Suggesting we add an additional layer of artistry to embellish the titles’ design, I recommended award-winning animator Cassie Shao, who often collaborates with my band, Maggie Dave. Her illustrated blowing sands revealing the names created a storybook-like beauty to the fantastical world that Stuckwisch imagined with her cast & crew.