Pardon the clipped, crass commentary but that’s what leapt from my mouth upon watching The Eagleman Stag, the 2011 BAFTA award-winning short film from Mikey Please. The stop-motion animation used here is incredible, with everything from the characters to the sets having been constructed using pure white foam, requiring a meticulous use of lighting to create shadows and, thereby, definition. The site for the film features a teaser of a behind the scenes look at how it was made. Even if the process underpinning the film isn’t something that usually gets you hot and bothered the film itself is still an utterly captivating, Existential study. Well worth eight minutes of your day, though Dr. Eagleman may disagree.
If you’ve already experienced Will Sweeney and Steve Scott‘s animated psychedelic 2009 music video for Birdy Nam Nam‘s tune “The Parachute Ending”, look away. Or, hey, don’t. Because you know it’s trippin’ AMAZEBALLS and you probably won’t mind watching it again over a nice morning bowl of strawberries ‘n’ Special K.
Most Birdy Nam Nam-related things tend to be –in this blogger’s humble opinion– pretty thoroughly amazeballs. The BNN DJ crew is comprised of four fabulous Frenchmen known as Crazy-B, DJ Need, DJ Pone, and Little Mike. They joined forces in 2006 and has been steadily gaining notoriety ever since thanks largely to their novel and challenging style of music-making: they take thousands of samples gleaned from various sources, press all of the beats and patterns into towering stacks of vinyl, and then assemble/spin these kaleidoscopic collaged elements live. It’s bleepybloopy bonkersbrilliance.
This is so lovely. Daniel Palacios, ‘Waves’ installation (2007):
(Via Siege, who describes it aptly as “‘Double Dutch’ meets ‘Unknown Pleasures’”. Definitely watch it full screen.)
Artist’s description:
“‘Waves’ utilizes a basic construction of a long piece of elastic string and two motors to visualize the presence of people close to the installation. The string between the two motorized chambers reacts to the people presence and movements, it twirls to produce a sine-wave simulation that eloquently resembles both the digitization of real-time sound waves and patterns of flow and connectivity found in natural systems.”
Director Joseph Mann, in cahoots with the puppeteering team Jonny & Will, has crafted this sweet, beautiful, and incredibly sad music video for musician Keaton Henson.
If you are a tenderhearted soul who can’t watch music videos like “I Will Follow You Into the Dark” and “Madder Red” or the movie Watership Down without bawling your eyes out, well… you probably shouldn’t watch this. But it’s beautifully done.
Showtime returns with the second season of Short Stories, their series of short, animated films. They also brought back PES and his stop-motion wizardry to follow up last season’s beautiful “Deep”. This time around it’s Fresh Guacamole, a simple recipe for the ever popular, grenade-based party dip.
Winner of the 2012 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg’s The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore tells the story of a young man whisked away (along with the rest of his town) by a great wind. In a desolate, gray landscape he is lead to a library full of living, flying books and becomes its caretaker, all the while writing a book of his own.
Beautifully told without words, the Lessmore has both the look and mannerisms of a Keaton-esque silent film star. The books, too, are imbued with a fantastic sense of life, despite their limited ability to emote. Lessmore’s main, Humpty Dumpty-like companion is especially well done, the flipping of illustrated pages allowing it to portray more complex emotions. Along with an understated score, it’s a lovely, sweet story. I had meant to watch this before the Oscars, and seeing it now, I find it most deserving of its honors.
Many of us remember Andrew Huang‘s DIY sci-fi short, “Doll Face“, which went viral on YouTube in 2007, boosting the USC graduate’s professional career. Huang’s most recent work, this short film called “SOLIPSIST“, is nothing short of a vibrant, sensual revelation. It earned him and his team the Special Jury Prize for Experimental Short at Slamdance 2012.
A breathtaking combination of time lapse and 3D optical illusion by California-based multimedia artist Jeff Frost:
“Over 40,000 high resolution still images were shot on Canon DSLR cameras for this film. I roamed the deserts of California and Utah looking for abandoned structures in the same manner that my Grandpa, Alfred, explored the Four Corners area looking for ancient Native American dwellings. This film is dedicated to him.”
I had never heard of Swedish duo Niki & The Dove before this, but their new single, “The Fox”, has won me over with its loping, electronic beat and lovely vocals. The video, created by Seattle-based WINTR is, perhaps, more technically impressive than thematically. The constantly shifting mask and geometric shapes are beautiful (the night time scenes near the end being especially impressive) and work well with the song, but there is not much more to it than that. Regardless of your feelings on the visuals, however, the song itself is well worth a listen.
