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First Watch: Emilie Simon's Stop-Animation Fairytale

Courtesy of the artist

French electro-pop artist and film composer Emilie Simon isn't super well-known in the U.S., but she's plenty popular in her native country. She hopes to reach a broader audience later this summer with the U.S. release of her new record Franky Knight. Despite the quirky name and dance beats, Simon wrote the sometimes sorrowful album about the death of someone close to her.

In a new video for the song "Franky's Princess," Simon uses a painstakingly produced stop-animation film to tell a classic, fairytale love story.

"I have always loved stop-motion and wanted to make a video that contrasted the romantic story of searching for the knight of your dreams with the dark imagery of unknown adventure and mystery," Simon says. "This music video was a lot of work. Using stop motion, each frame is important. The song has a consistent beat and it was very important that the video reflect the same energy and emotion of the song while also add its own creative interpretation of the character's journey to find lost love."

Franky Knight is due out in the U.S. in August. The album is also being used as the soundtrack to the Audrey Tautou film Delicacy. It's Emilie Simon's third film score: She also did the music for the French version of March Of The Penguins, and the soundtrack for a new French film called Lawless.

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Robin Hilton is a producer and co-host of the popular NPR Music show All Songs Considered.