animation

stunning short film made by students at ESMA school of the arts, in montpellier, france. it won the school’s top prize for student film.

i don’t usually like 3D computer animation, but this is beautiful. and even more, i like the 2D side-to-side animation style during the storytelling.

the story is based on an apache myth, about a time when the sky was too low and men had to walk bent over, looking down at their feet. an elder of the tribe sits around the campfire with the children and tells them this story. his voice is so warm and interesting, you’ll want to watch right to the end to see how the story turns out.

the whole thing is absolutely beautiful, like something by miyazaki hayao. it’s going to be my favorite for a long time.

(via the always amazing DeK at ticklebooth)

“A stop motion animation with ping pong balls, 2000 pictures, 500 balls and my hands”. Includes versions of classic video games.

Music: “Popcorn” by Hot Butter

thankfully, my labour and delivery didn’t turn out like this:

deerhoof :: “kidz are so small”, music video by animator alex fellows.

the video for fujiya & miyagi’s song “collarbone” uses animated child-style crayon drawings. there’s a soccer game and some friendly animals, but then everything turns… violent. i didn’t see that coming!

fujiya & miyagi are from england, even though their name is japanese. they do krautrock stereolab groove music. i really like this song…

i posted this to videosift but it didn’t get enough votes…

tezuka osamu is the japanese animator known as the “father of anime”. i grew up watching his work, including “ribon no kishi” (princess knight), “fushigi na merumo chan” (marvelous melmo), and of course “tetsuwan atomu” (astro boy).

in general, i hate anime. i don’t own any manga comics. i just don’t like the style of japanese animation that’s most famous in the west — what people call “japanimation”, with the superbig eyes and supercute faces. i think it’s creepy, in a bad way. people often assume that i’m an anime fan, maybe because i’m japanese and i draw, but i really never pay attention to it.

tezuka osamu created the style with big eyes and cute faces, but somehow i still like his work. maybe it’s nostalgia, but i think his drawings are more beautiful and gracious than the style of the recent anime i’ve seen. my favorite work of his is a manga, “black jack“, which i read as a high school student.

“memory” is an animated short that uses a mixture of drawn animation and cut-out images. none of it looks like anime. you might be surprised by the style — but it looks really cool. the story is insightful about the psychology of memory of individuals and a culture. i like the idea that futuristic people will have a very different idea about us (our “toilet culture”) than we do.