Tissue Animals

Some very subtle animal animation using just tissues, followed by a short making of video.

Pickett's Charge

Below is an HD video of one of the performances I saw at tonight's Puppet Slam at the Strathmore Mansion. This is a crankie created by Katherine Fahey—essentially a long cloth/paper scroll that is wound from one side of the scroll to the other, with a light and shadow puppets behind. I am guessing the display of this one is roughly 2' x 4'. This one was created to illustrate Baltimore musician ellen cherry's song "Pickett's Charge".  If I had know about this last month, I would have posted this on July 3, which was the 150th anniversary of Pickett's Charge. 

 

Understand Music

A great video from the finally.—"Understand Music"


Understand Music from finally. on Vimeo.

Betty Boop/St.James Infirmary

I went to a program at the Smithsonian today on New York City in the 1930's, taught by Saul Lilienstein and George Scheper. It covered art, music and architecture. One of the of most interesting discoveries for me was how different animation was before Walt Disney got a hold of it. 

Back in March I posted an amazing Art Deco animation  called "Miss Glory". Here is animated film Lilienstein showed today. It is Betty Boop in "Snow White" with Cab Calloway singing "St. James Infirmary". The film is from 1933, back in the day before animation was considered something just for kids.

Happy Birthday Studs

Today would have been Studs Terkel's 100th birthday. Unfortunately Studs only made it to 96, so her is not here to celebrate. Below is a short animated film from NPR's StoryCorps—"The Human Voice"—based on a recording of Studs.

Here is also a longer interview with Studs when he was in his middle 80's, talking about his life and career as an actor, writer and TV/Radio broadcaster. He was a fascinating man.

Page "Miss Glory"

I saw this movie at a program on Art Deco I went to last weekend at the Smithsonian. This may be the only Art Deco inspired Looney Tunes film ever created.

Page "Miss Glory"

The Fantastic Flying Books

This is the film that won the 2012 Academy Award for Short Animated Film—The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, directed by William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg.

Construction Paper Animation

An animated video for Josh Ritter's song “Love Is Making Its Way Back Home”. The video is created entirely from 12,000 pieces of laser cut construction paper. More information about the video on Ritter's blog post.

The Joy of Books

Alright, I guess my Kindle couldn't do this.

Jelly Bean Animation

"In Your Arms" performed by Kina Grannis, a music video animated with over 1/4 million jelly beans. The music video is followed by a making of video.

Gulp

'Gulp' is a short film created by Sumo Science at Aardman, depicting a fisherman going about his daily catch. Shot on location at Pendine Beach in South Wales, every frame of this stop-motion animation was shot using a Nokia N8, with its 12 megapixel camera and Carl Zeiss optics. The film has broken a world record for the 'largest stop-motion animation set', with the largest scene stretching over 11,000 square feet.

First the making of video, followed by the actual film.

Dripped

I have not posted any animation for a while. Here is Léo Verrier's homage to Jackson Pollack, Dripped.

Dripped from ChezEddy on Vimeo

Molecular Animation

A video from the New York Times on Molecular Animation.

Mark Twain

A lot has been written about Mark Twain this year, since it is the 100th anniversary of his death. This article, from the Los Angeles Times, has three lists of works by Twain: Essential, Overrated and Overlooked.

My two favorite works by Twain are not on these lists. I have previously posted an animated version of one of them,The Diaries of Adam and Eve. Described by the publisher as:

The Diaries--written near the end of Mark Twain's life and career--are perhaps his wisest, most personal works. The wry humor we expect is matched by a heartbreaking tenderness found nowhere else in his writings. And it was only in Eve that Twain ever wrote from a woman's viewpoint. An afterword details Twain's fascination with Adam and the parallels between his own marriage and Adam and Eve as depicted in the Diaries.

My other favorite is The War Pray, written by Twain during the furor of the Philippine-American War. It was not published until years after his death, because as Twain himself said, "I don't think the prayer will be published in my time. None but the dead are permitted to tell the truth".

He is an animated version of the Pray, which is actually more of a polemic, than a work of fiction. The animation in this version is adequate, by I much prefer John Groth's illustrations that are included in the print edition.

In two parts.

Danny & Annie

StoryCorps is an independent nonprofit whose mission is to provide Americans of all backgrounds and beliefs with the opportunity to record, share, and preserve the stories of our lives. Since 2003, StoryCorps has collected and archived more than 30,000 interviews from more than 60,000 participants. Each conversation is recorded on a free CD to share, and is preserved at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.

Now they have started to animate some of these stories, which are being shown on PBS. They are also available on the StoryCorps web site, including this one.

Danny & Annie from StoryCorps on Vimeo.

Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty

I went to see the Oscar nominated short animated films today. Of course, the new Wallace & Gromit was my favorite. But this was my second favorite, Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty directed by Nicky Phelan.

A Brief History of Pretty Much Everything

From Displeased Eskimo on YouTube.

"[A} flipbook made entirely out of biro pens. It's something like 2100 pages long, and about 50 jotter books. I'd say I worked on and off it for roughly 3 weeks."

My favorite scene is the Three Wise Men. This is as impressive as anything Pixar does.

The Diaries of Adam & Eve

I already did one post for Valentines Day, but, since this is a love story, I thought I should also post it today. A claymation version of Mark Twain's "The Diaries of Adam & Eve", which I think contains some of his best writing. This is from the DVD "The Adventures of Mark Twain". The video is divided into three parts.