The Lost Tribes of NYC

The Lost Tribes of New York City is a cute short film from Carolyn London of London Squared Productions. The city’s normally inanimate elements turn into lively reflections of the NYC’s community patches. Enjoy!

Sweet dreams

I just discovered Kirsten Lepore, a maker of unbelievably charming stop-motion animation, drawn animation and some live-action shorts you can find on her webpage.  Above you’ll find a good intro into Kirsten’s work, a comical conversation about being vegan between two forms of sealife called ‘Craig and Walter’.

‘Sweet Dreams’ is a 10 minute story of a cupcake who dreams of travels and adventure away from home. The video is quite long, but has real charm and a calming dream-like quality.

The final video is the ‘Story from North America’, a song-conversation between a young boy thoubled by a spider under his bed and the boy’s father.

This Is Where We Live

This Is Where We Live is a stop-motion animation for 4th Estate Publishers’ 25th Anniversary. It was produced by Apt Studio and Asylum Films.

I think the animation is quite good, but not mind-blowing. The charm for me isn’t in the visuals, but rather in the story that the video is seeking to convey. It’s always been quite amazing to me how people incessantly fill their lives with stories, whether through books, TV, film, gossip or creating them in their own lives. In real life, stories lead to an easier understanding of events, ourselves and others and the dynamics of just about anything from politics to evolution. We start listening to stories when growing up and continue this consumption through most of our lives. We also create our own stories, whether real or fictional to communicate to others who we are and what our experiences are. Stories are present in all cultures and have been communicators of historical events and religious preaching around the world.

According to Reynolds Price,

A need to tell and hear stories is essential to the species Homo sapiens–second in necessity apparently after nourishment and before love and shelter. Millions survive without love or home, almost none in silence; the opposite of silence leads quickly to narrative, and the sound of story is the dominant sound of our lives, from the small accounts of our day’s events to the vast incommunicable constructs of psychopaths.

Like Me, Only Better

Like Me, Only Better is a short film animation by Martin Pickles. The main character is a pencil-drawn Clive, who takes the viewer through various aspects of obsessive compulsive disorders, his experiences with Prozac and the painful architecture of his Catholic upbringing. The animation is a curious combination of entertainment and meaningful insights into things so often ignored in societies.

You can watch the video at Drawn or at Martin Pickles’ homepage. I’m really sorry to be sending to differnt sites to watch the video, but I have struggled and repeatedly failed in trying to upload it to WordPress!

JumpTrumpRumpBump

JumpTrumpRumpBump is a short film animation about an over-achieving  little girl called Mooney, who by day is a perfect daughter and by night has a secret jazzy life of her own. Thanks for the video, Lenny!

Explosions of colour

I’ve just found the making-of documentaries of some of my favourite ads by Jonathan Glazer. Besides the effects in his videos for UNKLE, Radiohead, Levis and Guinness among others, I was always quite impressed by how he expressed colour in his Sony Bravia campaign. The ad is shot in Glasgow in 2007 and does not use any special effects – it’s actually thousands of litres of paint exploding all over the place.

And the making of:

The second one is of bouncy balls falling across San Francisco by Nicolai Fuglsig (thanks for the correction, Sarah!) with the lovely song Hearbeats by Jose Gonzales (original by Knife). I haven’t seen many ads as uplifting as this one, I’ll give him that.

And the making of:

Spider

Yes, the third short film posted on the blog in a row, I know. I’ve just decided to get them all out of my system and this one shall be the last one of the series. Spider is a short by Nash Edgerton. I love the first line ‘It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye.’ It’s a little shocking at times, just so  you know.

Le Grand Content

Le Grand Content is a short film by Clemens Kogler together and Karo Szmit. The animation is based on the ubiqitous slideshow format of presenting just about everything today. Enjoy!

Breathing visuals

This short film ‘Paripetics’ by Zeitguised is a stunning piece of 3D animation. I’m particularly impressed by the image of the breathing near the end. Enjoy!

Iran, a nation of bloggers

Iran is often in the news because of its president and his relations with the rest of the world. The political system of Iran does not allow freedom of speech or press and currently new media is the only way of Iranians to express their discontent with their government. Four international students at Vancouver Film School, Aaron Chiesa, Hendy Sukarya, Lisa Temes and Toru Kageyama created this thought-provoking short film. The film has excellent imagery and conveys an important message about the role of new media in reinforcing the freedom of speech worldwide.