A trippy mixed-media music video, “Small Town Madness” is a visual roller coaster you’ll want to ride again and again.
This wild, vibrant, and hallucinogenic video by Korean artist Sujin Kim (with live-action sequences directed by Au Matt) serves as the perfect funhouse mirror for the band Kiwi Hug’s pastiche of ska, drum and bass, pop, and post-punk sounds. As for the plot? Something about icky green snail creatures trying to devour the Kiwi Hug band members. The duo is captured and transformed into felt-covered stone creatures. Will they escape the slimy snail monsters? Does it matter? Just sit back and enjoy the sensory overload — a dazzling fusion of eye-popping design, cg animation, and live action.
Recalling the origins of the project, Kim says she was initially inspired by the song’s title and melody.
I felt that a story where the main characters are swept up in a whirlwind of events would fit the atmosphere perfectly. One of the strongest ideas that came to mind was the classic hero-villain dynamic often seen in Japanese animation from the 1960s to 1990s, such as The Space Giants (1966). Since the story is set in a strange village, I thought it would be interesting to feature not the typical strong-looking monsters like dinosaurs, but rather weak-looking creatures like snails, which turn out to be truly dangerous. This idea became the foundation of the story’s development.
Regarding the video’s technique and visual design, Kim adds:
I wanted to avoid overly sophisticated and polished designs. Instead, I aimed for something slightly rough, with a handmade quality that I find very charming. For the green creatures, I used ZBrush to sculpt them in a way that retains that handcrafted feeling. Then, I worked on the textures in Substance Painter to capture a subtle, in-between quality, somewhere between plastic and clay.
Sujin Kim (also known as Fom Fom) is a filmmaker and illustrator based in Seoul, Korea. She studied visual communication design in Seoul and works across music videos, short animation, illustration, and media wall art, with video as her primary medium. Her work explores the delicate emotions and desires of human nature, weaving them into visually compelling narratives.
