Animator Jim Batt Releases “I Have Your Heart” with Molly Crabapple & Kim Boekbinder

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The short animation "I Have Your Heart" is a collaboration between New York illustratorMolly Crabapple, international rockstar Kim Boekbinder, and animator Jim Batt (the director behind recent popular stopmotion music video "Want It Back" for Amanda Palmer.) The film is the story of a good girl with a bad heart, and the boy whose death will save her life. Told through darkly whimsical stopmotion, the film was inspired by Kim Boekbinder's rollicking, accordion sing-a-long song about love, loss, and open-heart surgery – "The Organ Donor's March."

Making this film was a long and detailed process. The characters and scene elements were hand drawn by Molly Crabapple, then scanned and photoshopped into layouts for moveable puppets, props, and scenery. These were printed on a thick paper stock, cut out by hand, and crafted into freestanding characters and sets. This paper world was then brought to life frame by frame with stopmotion animation by Jim Batt, using a trusty Canon 7D and Dragonframe software. Kim Boekbinder created an extended version of her song 'The Organ Donor's March' to score the finished film.

On March 25th 2011, having completed preproduction on the project, Crabapple, Boekbinder, & Batt launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise money to assist with the production of the animation. Within 36 short hours the team had exceeded their initial $7,00 target and caught the attention of major online websites and twitter. Over $17,000 was raised in all, allowing production to begin.

"I've loved this song for years and want to see the animation very badly." - Neil Gaiman

With the team split between two hemispheres and numerous continents, the project was born on the internet and made possible through the connective powers of twitter, email, kickstarter, blogs, skype and more. Molly and Kim were already frequent collaborators, combining their art and music to great effect. Jim saw via twitter they were looking for an animator and the three talents joined forces to form the creative powerhouse of Crabapple, Boekbinder, & Batt!

As the project progressed, Kim and Jim's relationship grew to become romantic as well as artistic, first expressed with the words 'I like you as more than just an animator…' Having been brought together by this animation, they do now indeed have each other's hearts, along with dreams of many more projects to come.

Jim Batt is a filmmaker who currently splits his time between Melbourne and New York, working as both a live action film director and stop-motion animator. He has directed several award winning short films, the feature length silent film 'Dreamtangle', and numerous music videos. With experience across all stages of film creation, from scriptwriting to post-production, Jim brings a keen understanding of film craft to his work as well as a passion for unique stories and fresh imagery.

For more information, contact Jim Batt: battsignal@gmail.com