Danny Yount: Semi-Permanent Portland 2013 Titles

New piece from one of my favourite motion designers of all time, Danny Yount.

SEMI-PERMANENT 2013 TITLES from Danny Yount on Vimeo.

Thanks for the tip, Filipe. 

Oh Yeah Wow for Wax Tailor: ‘Time To Go’

Wax Tailor feat Aloe Blacc- Time To Go from Oh Yeah Wow on Vimeo.

Another beautifully done stop-motion by the team at Melbourne-based studio Oh Yeah Wow. Directed by Darcy Prendergast and Seamus Spilsbury. The team is also known their work for Gotye’s ‘Easy Way Out’ music video.

Full credit list on the Vimeo page.  

 

Frames Set Match for Animals Australia

We all know how horrible factory farming is by now, but what’s interesting about this particular campaign is that it seeks to maintain its Television airspace through viewers’ donation. If there is one ad that deserves to be watched instead of getting chucked aside by channel-surfing or toilet-going, this is it. As a friend of mine said, ‘if this doesn’t stop factory farming in Australia, nothing would’. Consider making a donation, folks. Or at least think twice about where that packet of meat you’re buying came from.

Frame Set Match (FSM) of Sydney did the wonderful job of bringing this chorus of animals together. Full credits and more about the process and the story behind this ad can be found here.

Thank you for the nudge, Guy and Stefan.

Method Design for The Avengers

Beautiful and simple, Method Design’s (a division of Method Studios) end title sequence for Marvel’s latest blockbuster features exquisitely detailed, close-up shots of The Avengers’ costumes. My favourite part is how they’re all chipped, broken, scuffed, and worn. This piece is quiet and gorgeous – a total opposite to the film itself (which is anything but quiet), and as such, it gives the audience a perfect finish to the experience. Like an elegant dessert after a sumptuous main course. In case you’re wondering, yes this is definitely a film worth seeing.

From Method Studios’ page:

Creative Director for Method Design in LA, Steve Viola comments, “Many of the shots in the piece employ complex transitions that proved challenging with varying lenses, scene depths and text positioned in stereo. We were pleased with the resulting sequence, which while CG, is completely believable.”

Thanks, Whedonesque, for the tip.

Full Credits after the jump

Out of Sight

Out of Sight on Vimeo.

So this is a year old, but it’s still wonderful, and I can’t believe it’s slipped through my posting schedule. A trio of Taiwanese students made these as part of their graduation project. Their making-of page is worth looking at, even though the text is all in Mandarin and a simple Google translate of the page isn’t doing a decent job at all. It’s one of the most moving piece of animation I have seen lately … if you’re not touched by this, you may be made of wood!

Recap: Pause Fest 2011

A couple of weeks ago the city of Melbourne, Australia, hosted the very first run of a digital design festival, Pause. The festival covers different aspects from digital advertising to street projections, and gives the Melbourne design community an excuse to network, connect and get inspired. I went along and have now come to share my thoughts on the events I attended and on the festival as a whole.

(more…)

Google Doodle: All hail Freddie Mercury!

It’s not live yet for you Americans (you gotta wait till Tuesday, September 6, 2011), but here in Australia, we are already singing along! More info on the video can be found here and here.

Bronte: by Ari & Jason for Gotye

Bronte (official film clip) from Gotye on Vimeo.

One of my favorite musicians, Wally de Backer (more commonly known as Gotye), recently released a fantastic new album Making Mirrors, and along with it, a bunch of great music videos by a number of Australian animators-filmmakers. I’m thrilled to find out that Ari Gibson and Jason Pamment (whom I got to know about through their “Sometimes the Stars” video for another Australian band, The Audreys, and Ari’s co-directed film, The Cat Piano) made one of those. Wally/Gotye is well known for his passion in supporting other Australian artists by collaborating with them. (You might remember Picture Drift’s work for his first hit single, “Heart’s A Mess.”)

The song “Bronte” is about a family saying goodbye to their old dog. Ari and Jason once again created a lush, beautiful backdrop for the story to unfold, as alive and whimsical as the characters that inhabit it. In contrast to “Sometimes the Stars,” the atmosphere is a less stark, but it is just as moving.

Read interview and behind-the-scenes work here…

Terry Gilliam’s cutout animation tutorial

A blast from the past! The youthful Terry Gilliam explaining the methods behind his cutout animations.This has been circulating the interwebs for a bit, and we thought we’d share it with you all. Should be a treat for all you Monty Python fans out there.

Yowie and the Magpie by Dylan White

Been a long time coming, but this delightfully illustrative and darkly comic tale is now available to view in its entirety online, after having toured festivals. I especially enjoyed the constantly pulsating and bubbling white beard of “dad.” Designed and directed by Dylan White, so be sure to head over to his site for more behind-the-scenes info. I enjoyed the click-thru showing the juxtapositions between storyboard images and final style frames. Full credit list on the site and on the Vimeo page here.

Channel 4 Street Summer promo

Update: MPC’s behind-the-scene ‘making of’. Fascinating stuff!

Given the recent riots and looting that’s been plaguing England, I cannot help but post this “Street Summer” promo by Channel 4. MPC London is responsible for the flawless VFX, which is fascinating to watch if you can ignore the highly charged content for a second.

Glancing through the comments on the official YouTube page and also here, I find them to be just as interesting as the video.

Is this inappropriate, done in poor taste? Or is this simply a honest portrayal of the youth culture in Britain now? Does this condone stereotyping or challenge viewers to rethink it? What do you think?

Thanks to Zinnia for the nudge, and our hearts go out to U.K. residents affected by the riots.

 

Defective Detective

Defective Detective from Cartoon Brew on Vimeo.

Avner Geller and Stevie Lewis worked together to bring us this lovely animated film about a hapless detective’s attempt in catching a serial killer. Gorgeously lit, textured, modelled and designed, it features a combination of 2D and 3D animation and debuted at Cartoon Brew’s second annual Student Animation Festival. It scores a pretty okay rating in the humor department, in my opinion, but the best thing about it is its brevity: A good film usually doesn’t have to go any longer than it needs to. On that note, I’ll shut up now and let you enjoy it.

(Thanks to Greg for the nudge.)