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I love animation. With it creativity has no limits. I am constantly impressed with the works of professional animation teams and starting animators alike. So every day I'd like to post one of my favorite shorts. Some new. Some old. 2D, GG, Stop motion. Whether you're young or just young at heart I hope you enjoy them.

First, an imaginative and award winning work of Till Nowak from 2005.
Delivery.

That was really nice.

Today's is older and uses stop motion. This one scared me quite a bit as a youngster and I remember dreading putting the tape in the VCR just so I could watch the shorts that came with it. Most will recognize the style immediately, but this is writer/director Tim Burton's very first film. With a girlfriend working as an executive over at Disney, Tim had access to the equipment and cast (which Shego will vouch is A-list) to make the film possible in 1982.

Vincent

Today a very short classic from 1969 by Marv Newland (Just in case you don't notice.)

Bambi meets Godzilla.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpBkc2jK-6w[/ame]

Today's short is the Oscar nominated CG film


Oktapodi

CG films are vastly becoming the norm and even many 2D films use computers to speed up the process. There are animators out there who are willing to avoid this "crutch" and bring a piece to life in a much more traditional way. Virgil Widrich animated this short by using the frames of classic films to tell the story of a bizarre chase sequence. While a computer would have been very useful for this production, Widrich preferred a hands on approach.

Fast Film

We can't go very far without a bit of Canadian animation. This short was created in 1979, directed by Eugene Fedorenko and written by Derek Lamb and Les Mîmes Électriques for UNICEF. There is no speech (only mumbling) and all of the sound effects were provided by Les Mîmes Électriques (The Electric Mimes) using their own voices. One of the aspects of this short I enjoy the most is the motion of the "moving camera".

Every Child

An emotional piece by Chuck Gamble.

Shadow Puppets

Some animated shorts are just so classic that everyone with an internet connection has probably seen them. And if you haven't why the hell not? For anyone who has ever quoted "My spoon is too big" you're already familiar with Don Hertzfeldt's most famous toon. But you'll probably watch it again anyway.

REJECTED

While the term "flash animation" is often associated with cheaply made shorts involving fruit with clocks for faces, it cannot be ruled out when it comes to animated shorts. There are some animators who have done quite amazing things with flash animation and Adam Phillips is among them. Phillips began his animation career working for Disney doing character work for many of the direct to video "sequels" of Disney animated films. Eventually he parted ways with Disney and went into business for himself. He currently works with Wizards of the Coast animating shorts to promote Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition. Before that he created several shorts set in the fictional forest of Brackenwood, usually involving the misadventures of a selfish centaur by the name of Bitey. While today's short is not one of his most well known or longest, it reminds me why Phillips is way ahead of the game when it comes to flash animation.

The Yuyu

As I'll be gone a few days for vacation, today's will be a double helping.

In 1988 Brian Jennings and Bill Kroyer teamed up to make the following short. Using looney tune style comedy the piece was an analogy for technology sneaking up on us and eventually taking over.

Technological Threat



While Technological Threat was up for an Academy Award that year, it seems poetic that the award went to Pixar for their submission.

Tin Toy

Much like Adam Phillips, Bernard Derriman had a career with Disney's animation studios before branching off to focus on other projects including commercials and Big Green Rabbit on PBS. A few years ago the alternative rock band TISM held a competition to submit a music video for their single "Everyone Else Has Had More Sex Than Me". Derriman's flash animated video featuring a Rabbit with the #1 on his chest was selected as the winning entry and became very popular via internet distribution.

Everyone Else Has Had More Sex Than Me.

Today some french animation by Louis Clichy.

À quoi ça sert l'amour?
(What good is love?)

This Oscar nominated Canadian short from 1968 put a working class spin on the fairy tale Jack and the Beanstalk.

The House That Jack Built

Bill Plympton is known for a variety of shorts, films, and commercials. All using his own hand drawn animation. In fact he is the first known animator to hand draw a feature length animated film all by himself. Often called "Plymptoons" his work has appeared everywhere from film festivals to MTV's "Liquid Television". In 2004 he created this little gem.

Guard Dog

http://www.atom.com/funny_videos/plympton_guard_dog/

A quick CG short that was made by Dony Permedi as his master thesis project from the School of Visual Arts in New York City.

Kiwi

I want to thank you, from the depths of my twisted little heart, for "Vincent" I will be watching this now on a daily basis and hope to find a HD version soon.

Thank you again. :uhhuh:

Shegokigo said:

I want to thank you, from the depths of my twisted little heart, for "Vincent" I will be watching this now on a daily basis and hope to find a HD version soon.

Thank you again. :uhhuh:

Click to expand...

No problem. These are great shorts and it's unfortunate that some folks go years without seeing them. So is this the first time you've been shown Vincent or been aware of it's existence?

It's a first. Yes.

Delivery: I kept thinking, if that flower has aphids, we're all doomed.

I couldn't sit through Delivery, the quality was just horrid. hwell:

A traditionally animated Japanese short (despite the title being in french) about rediscovering one's past. 2009 Academy Award winner.

La Maison en Petits Cubes

Looking forward to checking them out soon as I get home.

On a related note, I watched "Vincent" two times before work today. :uhhuh:

Kiwi! always makes me sad.

Dusty668 said:

Kiwi! always makes me sad.

Click to expand...

Let's just assume he had a Wiley Coyote landing.

I would classify the next video as animation by technicality. It did win an Academy Award in 1963, but compared to films such as Pianissimo and Automania 2000 it's not as if there was fierce competition for the award. Animation suffered quite a bit in the 1960s and the popularity of television, due to a demanding episode schedule that required using cheaper and quicker animation methods. This was reflected upon many of the shorts produced during the era such as The House that Jack Built above. Basically anything that attempted to get away with as little background as possible by simply changing the color to "disguise" it's bareness. In these times writing and creative uses of the available animation were crucial. Then along comes then fledgling writer Mel Brooks who teams up with director/producer Ernest Pintoff to give us this little gem that's whole point is to mock itself for being anything but animation.

The Critic

Now a short about the tempting embrace of death, experienced by a WWII pilot.

Yankee Gal

In the mid 1980s there was a monumental pairing between Disney and Warner Bros to create a film like no other that would utilize cartoon characters from both studios. Steven Spielberg played a big factor in this deal and part of the contract involved both studios having equal rights to any of the characters created specifically for the movie. Who Framed Roger Rabbit was a huge success and the suggestion to start using the animated stars of the film in cartoon shorts that would play before big budget films. The first of these shorts Tummy Trouble was attached to the theatrical release of Honey I Shrunk the Kids, and is believed to be the primary reason the film did so well. But when the second animated short Roller Coaster Rabbit was placed in front of Disney's floundering Dick Tracy film instead of Aracnophobia a wedge made its way between Spielberg and Disney. Eventually a third short was created and Trail Mix-Up was put in front of the Disney/Amblin film A Far Off Place.

While I love all three of the shorts that were created, today's will be the best of the three in my opinion.

Roller Coaster Rabbit.



"What's a matter, toots? Afraid of a little.... bang?"

A story about how imagination can shape us and still be part of our world even when we are forced to deal with reality. I'm not so much of a fan of the length, but I do love the visuals.


IMAGO

I've posted this one on the forums in the past, but it's worth repeating. In 2005 this Steam Punk genre film was created using a blending of CGI and an animation technique called Silhouette Animation.

The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vORsKyopHyM[/ame]

Sometimes animation can get quite creative and elaborate. Take this series by Darren Walsh from Aardman Studios. Like Aardman Studio's "Wallace and Gromit" the series is stop motion, but unlike "Wallace and Gromit" does not use claymation. Instead Walsh's series involves a difficult stop motion technique called pixilation where an actor is manipulated like a stop motion puppet and a series of hundreds of shots are taken frame by frame. To complicate things further, this series also utilizes mask replacement to give the characters the visuals of speech.
The guy under that mask has to be the most patient person ever.

I can't find a good quality version on Atom so here is a direct link. Be sure to check out the other vids of the series while you are there.

Angry Kid: Curious

Some NSFW language used.

http://www.atom.com/funny_videos/angry_kid2_curious