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Čtvrt na Smrt

MOOD RAILWAY STATION

Creative producing a music video for a Prague (non-)folk / alternative rock band "Quarter to Death". The story tells about a lucid journey of a dreamer to the depths of (un)consciousness...

MUSIC BAND

  • Čtvrt na Smrt
    (Quarter to Death)

  • Music

Creative production

  • Jan Brukner

  • IDEAVIZ

Co-authors

  • ČTVRT NA SMRT
    Jan Vacík
    Aněž Urbanová
    Jiří Sejf
    Dalibor Hrubeš
    Jakub Mahner

  • JÁMOR / Ondřej Ježek 
    Music production
    Mix / Mastering

  • IDEAVIZ / Jan Brukner 
    Visual production
    Scriptwriter
    Director
    Designer

What I did

  • Concept Design
  • Script and storyboard

  • Visual production

  • Editing / Composition
  • Final music video
  • Technique: combination of digital drawing, collage, 3D, LLM and AI

2025

Dream traveler
enters the Timeless.
Does he know thyself...?

At the station between dream and reality, the tracks lead into the depths of memory and the journey of self-discovery begins. "Mood Station" is the single by the band Quarter to Death, which is accompanied by an animated music video in the form of a dream trip that tells a story of searching, transformation and return to inner landscapes. In the story, we follow the character of a dreamy traveler whose journey through surreal railway spaces gradually reveals a landscape of unspoken memories, buried emotions and multi-layered symbolism. What lies between light and shadow?

It is not only an imagination, but also an experimental creation that tests the immediacy of the possibilities of today's modern technologies in realizing visual dreams. It creates a world that just a few years ago would have been impossible to create by a single creator without an extensive crew or with much greater effort and demands on time and resources.

I drew on surrealism, depth psychology, symbolism and conscious ( lucid ) dreaming to create the story of this clip.

BAND & MUSIC

"Čtvrt na Smrt" (Quarter to Death) is a Czech band with a distinctive signature, moving on the borderline of alternative rock, contemporary songwriting and dreamlike melancholy. In the song "Náladové nádraží" the band's sound is intertwined with the motifs of waiting, journey and transformation. The music here is not only an accompaniment but also a mood driver - much like the train station itself in the story. The singer Jan Vacik's characteristic vocals go through various positions from whispers to raw lamentation and become a guide in the labyrinth of space and memory.

The band has been active on the Czech scene since 2014 and is appreciated for its poetic language, strong visual identity and artistic overlap. Read more: www.ctvrtnasmrt.cz 

...is it a dream?

MORE ABOUT THE PROJECT.

How did the project come about?
Previews of concepts, pre-production, designs and story...

All in the "MAKING of" BELOW...

STORY and INSPIRATION

Mood Station is a dreamlike-surrealist visual poem that follows one man's pilgrimage across a strangely familiar landscape, where reality gives way to symbols and memories materialize the landscape.

Walking to a minimalist rhythm, the main character - a dreamy traveller with a suitcase - finds himself on an abandoned railway line that leads him across a flooded wasteland to a strange railway station. Silence is replaced by the bustle of the inner world and forgotten voices. He enters a space that is not subject to time: a station where the tracks end and begin, where the waiting room resembles a temple and shadows turn into ghosts.

A mysterious guide, abandoned gifts of the past, an old coffee machine and an elevator hidden in a tree all form a poetic labyrinth in which personal transformation takes place without words, but with all the more visual intensity.

The story is both an introspective journey and a collective station where animal consciousness mixes with human insecurity, and where everyone waits for a train that may never arrive.

The story has many hidden layers and symbols that each viewer can figure out for themselves, depending on what they are looking for on their journey.

CONCEPT
and TECHNOLOGY

"The technology used is complex and inventive: the project uses digital painting, 3D modelling, collage compositions, and builds massively on generative "Ai" systems and LLM (large language models). However, these are here a tool to accelerate the visualisation of an idea, not a substitute for it - each scene is built as a combination of automatic drawing, plot rhythm and layers of meaning, inspired by Jungian psychology, myth and dream. This creates a world that just a few years ago would have been impossible to create by a single creator without an extensive crew or with much greater effort and demands on time and resources. It is thus not only an imagination, but also an experimental creation that tests the immediacy of the possibilities of today's modern technologies in realizing visual dreams.

"Gnóthi seauton" (Greek Γνῶθι σεαυτόν ) - "Know thyself..." is the challenge facing our hero. The symbolic time of Life is grasped in the hands of the resting Death. This is just one of the many symbolic motifs you can find in the music video...

A journey along the rails, where we meet the dreamy guide "The Lady of Memories" in red, and a call to the dream traveler who enters the "temple" of knowledge

INSPIRATION and ARCHITECTURE VLOG

"The narrative world is based on the poetics of dreams and deep imagination, in which architecture, characters and time itself change and deform. Giant exhibition halls, switchbacks to the unconscious, a coffee machine as a vending machine offering knowledge, or a tree growing through the tracks - all become part of a metaphorical story about the search for memory and the roots of prehistory. The viewer is drawn into a space between dream and reality, where it is unclear what is past, what is present and what never happened - and yet it happens."

The clip builds on earlier projects I've worked on visually, in design, content and surreal narrative. For example, it was the development of the artwork for "Jarmara Jára Cimrman"(2011), the creation of music videos for Mandrage "Silhouettes" (2013), Kafka Band "People Get Lost"(2019) or a surrealistic journey through 100 years of Czech-Slovak history in virtual reality.

For the new project I am again using a visual language combining distinctive stylization with steam-punk elements and symbolic storyline. I drew inspiration from the station aesthetics of Austria-Hungary and the classic works of Jules Verne and director Karel Zeman.

🢁 short (Czech language) VLOG "mini video documentary" about the inspiration of Prague station architecture (sound can be turned on for the video)

CHARACTERS

💼 Jan V. alias "The Dream Traveller"

The man with a travel case, a silent pilgrim in a surreal landscape. His journey is both introspective and initiatory - a seemingly ordinary walk on the tracks turns into a journey within himself. The character teeters between waking and dreaming. His eyes reflect both restlessness and the calm of reconciliation.

the dream traveller and his appearance subject to the development of the story

🔻 Mrs. Memories

A mysterious woman in a red coat who appears and disappears as a guide. She forms a trail of objects behind her - relics of memory. She looks old and young at the same time, human and symbolic. It leads Jan to the station and deeper into the station itself.

The Oneironautic Way

The world of Mood Station is not a place, but a state of mind. The tracks meander between waking and dreaming, the tunnel leads in rather than out, and each stop along the way sounds like an echo of a forgotten memory. The station's monumental concourse rises like a temple to time and knowledge - with abandoned platforms, an overgrown coffee machine and a tree growing through the roof to the sky. Upstairs, a quiet corridor with a series of doors - SOUL, SPIRIT, EROS - like a catalogue of inner worlds that can only be entered without a map. These locations are not backdrops - they are landscapes of the soul that ask questions before we can ask them.

As, for example, in states of lucid (conscious) dreaming.

Welcome Dreamers!

🌑 Tunnel of Darkness

The narrow, dark railway tunnel through which John V. makes his way. The camera follows his eyes - the beginning of the journey is dark and introspective, the light at the end of the tunnel signals the transition to another dimension. Is this a regression or perhaps a flashback to Birth?

🌫️ Flooded landscape

Extensive area along the line flooded with water. The tracks are the only solid way forward. In the fog, silhouettes of structures, dead trees, old carriages emerge - a melancholic, post-apocalyptic environment, a materialised past. Our body remains the only clue. Only by looking at his hands can the dreaming traveller ascertain whether he is dreaming or awake?

🕰️ Railway Station / Station Hall

A monumental Art Nouveau complex with a tower, clock and facade from another century. Inside, the space changes: from an empty and cathedral-like space, it gradually becomes a place full of life, shadows of consciousness. Upon entering, we are greeted by the knowing head of the Mercury statue. But the tracks lead much deeper into the heart of the station...

☕ Coffee machine

A bizarre steampunk "coffee" machine that offers a strange liquid in a wine glass instead of a boost. Like a living being, it responds to the hero's presence. It gradually grows and becomes part of the tree. A symbol of decisions, illusions and the absurdity of everyday life? And the bitter sap of the Tree of Knowledge...

🌳 Tree / Tree lift

A monumental organic structure that grows through the station and houses an elevator with animal symbols instead of numbers. It is a gateway to other planes of consciousness or reality. The elevator lowers itself - as if it knows where it should lead. The crown of the tree is like a head on a human body without wings. On the seventh floor of the crown awaits... Now there is no turning back.

🗝️ Door and Corridor to the control room

The door has a handle in the shape of an animal's claw - a telling detail that this office does not belong only to the human world. The atmosphere is reminiscent of the end of a labyrinth - the last threshold before something fundamental changes. The door seems to conceal something essential - an unspoken truth that must be opened alone. What follows is a narrow, darkened corridor where a series of doors stretch out - each bearing a special inscription: 'SOUL', 'SPIRIT', 'EROS', and more. The space feels like a backstage of Consciousness or an archive of inner chambers. The silence here is thick, almost audible.

𓂀 Main Office / Dispatching

The dedicated room behind the giant clock. A place of confrontation, silence and transformation. This is where
when all else has fallen silent. Anticipation sets in.

🧿Surreal Visions 👁️⃤

The series of visual sequences where reality changes: Jan recognises himself, the head turns into a mountain, the tracks disappear into the darkness. These visions transcend space and time - they are the cathartic and dreamlike conclusion of the whole journey.

EPILOG

When the tracks disappear into the fog again and the hands of the clock stop moving, all that remains is a silent station where every train is heading simultaneously from nowhere to nowhere and where it needs to go. The figure that has been transformed may never have been the same.

And the world around - with all its animal faces, coffee machines and shadows in shop windows - may always have been inside.

In that space between the last blink and the first breath.

The "mood station" never closes its doors.

It just leaves them open.

Look at your hands.

You know the way.

Yes.
I am...