QUICK TAKES - Aug. 5, 2009

The music video Heath Ledger directed for “King Rat” by Modest Mouse debuted online Tuesday. The six-minute animated video is both whimsical and dark, showing whales and dolphins aboard a ship, fishing for humans in the water.

It concludes with a message in white letters on a black screen: “This began with our friend, a great defender of life, and was completed in his spirit.”

Ledger was 28 when he died last year. Modest Mouse announced in March that it would release the video “in honor of Heath’s last piece of work as a director,” according to spokeswoman Lisa Markowitz. The actor previously directed a video for one of Ben Harper’s songs.