big yellow

Ah the simple things in life. A great stop-motion animation here from the folks over at Big Yellow. A simple and effective ad. Highlighting all the junk we accumulate in life as waves of an ocean crashing about a house. Really nicely animated to the sounds of the ocean. I had an idea to do something similar in my back garden as we have a pool of gravel for a garden and I could envisage waves of gravel moving about. Hmmm I sense a project coming on.

flowers feed the soul

Flowers feed the soul is a great site that definitely needs rediscovering. I was doing a little research yesterday on The FWA site (Flash Web Awards) for a project we are working on. And I stumbled across this FFTS site which I had seen before but really would just like to share it. I absolutely love the meld of stop-motion animation with flash to create this gorgeous little environment. It is really ornate and layered and rich with detail. The guy is a flower designer who wants to create flower arrangements for you based around your mood. This is a cool concept and I hope he did well with this site. I think it works. It is quirky and different and quite brave.

eatPES

I found this rather lovely stop-motion advert for Bacardi from the guys over at PES films. I particularly like the first lemon advert. The thing with great stop-motion (as the guys over at Aardman will tell you) is you have to start with a great story. The genius comes with how the cheeky script is realized through stop-motion. This really is such a painstackingly labourious medium to work in that I have such great respect for anyone doing this kind of work. I'm not sure if I have the patience.

This one by PES will also make you titter :) roof sex

and this one is just wrong!!!! beasty boy

Patryk Rebisz

Do check out this wonderful short video shot by Patryk Rebisz. You may remember a post I did a while back featuring another film by this same film-maker entitled Between you and me. What is great about this guy is his story-telling ability in the most basic of medium. Here the polaroids tell the story as they are being burned. It is a really interesting narrative flow and the music heightens the emotion. Enjoy :)

toben seymour

I've just discovered Toben Seymour. He is a director working out of California and has spent his life as animator/puppeteer/sound engineer/director/content generator. What he loves is recreating old school film techniques and this video featured here for The Willowz is no exception. I am still trying to figure out exactly how this is done. This is NOT cgi. The technique is to use light to with an extended shutter lag to burn light images onto each frame. In this way you can paint onto the lens if you are clever enough. But what he is doing here is melding this technique with stop-motion to create an absolutely surreal effect. I'm determined to figure out how he storyboarded this.

Links to his homepage & youtube videos

iblinds

Apple has done it again. To complement their range of gorgeous computer wear they are branching out into the realm of interactive office furniture. Featured here with the iBlind. Yes window blinds that interact with your music. Essential? Maybe not. But a great video here with brilliant and rather hypnotic use of stop-motion video. Enjoy!

Between you and me

This movie was filmed in what is in my mind a new medium. Stop motion burst photography. So by using a digital camera's burst mode you can fire off a series of images one after the other. By piecing these images together you create a stop-motion effect. I think this achieves a rather unique look and would be great to use in a viral ad campaign.

Between you and me has won loads of awards including the SeNef Mobile Grand Prix at Seoul Film Festival, Best Experimental Film at the Tiburon International Film Festival, Best Cinematography at the Gotham City International Film Festival, Best Short Film at the Vilnius Independent Film & Video Festival and in the Experimental Film category at Big Apple Film Festival. It was written and directed by Patryk Rebisz.

What really happened after the death star blew up

This video is genius. And for those of us who wondered what really happened after the Death Star was blown up here is your answer. With quality science fiction like Battlestar Gallactica these days what can you do but laugh at how ridiculous the Star Wars franchise has become. Enjoy my young padawans.

silent knife

The Knife here with their incredible track Silent Shout. And with it comes this hypnotic nightmare of a music video. Done in the best tradition of youtube inspired stop-motion trickery. It starts out as a pulsating animation and then seems to pan out of its locale on a monitor to reveal a desk with marching figures and in the distance a shadowy reflection. Done in the best Lynch/Cronenberg mash-up style this really is a nightmare of a video. But ever so suited to this song. Huge fore-headed creatures sing to us as the horror continues. Low-fi visual eccentricity. Love it.

xmas light show

This has got to be one of the best stop-motion virals I have seen. An enormous amount of work has obviously gone into this little production. And epic it is with it's orchestral rock soundtrack. (Awesome dude). Judging by their site they build their light tracks on rigs that are set-up with controls so it is a 'simple' matter of using stop-motion techniques and firing off different lights in order to achieve this effect. I think what is most impressive about any stop-motion viral is the scale of the production and this one truly is monumental. Enjoy the video below.

post it motion

Check out this great video here It is stop motion trickery with LOTS of post its. Stop motion videos seem to be in vogue of late with bored twenty somethings who have a camcorder and a free weekend to hand. But this one really makes a good attempt at synching with the music and leaves you marveling at the time spent to create this movie. Inspires me to waste a weekend trying something like this myself. All I need is an extra pair of hands, a great story board. Oh and a free weekend of course :)