Art.com “Moving In”

Lots of nice details in this commercial for art.com.

I also loved art.com’s previous spots, directed by Michael Langan, We Are Art and artCircles.

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Renaud Hallée: The Clockmakers

Montreal-based Renaud Hallée creates music-centered short films and interactive projects. We’ve previously featured Combustion, Gravity and Sonar. In Renaud’s new film, The Clockmakers, trampolinists trigger mesmerizing musical sequences with their acrobatics.

Chris Randall: Pilsner Urquell “Book of Legends”

Stunning stop-motion from Chris Randall and Second Home Studios to celebrate the birthday of Pilsner Urquell. It’s exciting to see the work of paper artist Su Blackwell translated into motion.

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Rest in Peace: Ray Harryhausen

R.I.P. Ray Harryhausen, whose creatures delighted and inspired so many of us.

Video hat tip to Mashable.

Holbrooks: Red Cross “Parcel”

Holbrooks (aka NYC and Budapest-based Tom Brown and Daniel Gray) for the Red Cross. Original music and sound design by Antfood.

If you’ve never seen their short film, t.o.m., head over to Vimeo and watch it now.
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Nathan Love: Kellogg’s Froot Loops “Carl the King Crab”

3D kings Nathan Love take a fifty-year old Toucan Sam and make him look like a spry young ‘un in their 3D reboot of the Froot Loops brand. The texture and rendering have a fantastic hand-made feel – the deep felty blues in the nephews coats and, wow, that king crab!
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1st Ave Machine: Panera “Live Consciously / Eat Deliciously”

The Rube Goldberg machine is a reoccurring gimmick in advertising, but before anyone complains about having “seen it before”, take a look at 1st Ave Machine‘s approach for Panera. The circular loop marries conceptually with the daily bakery cycle. There’s beautiful design and craftsmanship throughout the varied kinetic elements. The camera cuts close on details and back wide again rather than restricting itself to the typical “all-in-one-take” approach. They make a very complicated process look effortless.

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The Fox And King: 11Eleven

Melbourne-based The Fox And King (aka Glenn Thomas) created these short scenes for the 11Eleven Project. Like some of the projects cited in our recent How To Make Sure You Can Show Work In Your Portfolio feature, the film’s creative eventually went in a different direction. Though they weren’t used in the final documentary, Glenn does have some lovely portfolio pieces to show off his illustration and animation skills.

The concept behind the videos was to show the time 11:11, at different places in the world. Night time in NYC. Sunrise in Africa. Coffee & Toast in Melbourne. Catching the subway in Tokyo. The last one, titled Home, was meant to be a nostalgic piece, to evoke that feeling of wonder we all use to have as children, before life started and got in the way.

Ewan Jones Morris: Pinkunoizu “I Chi”

Ewan Jones Morris creates an animated sci-fi collage of vintage picture books, retro magazines and old science journals for I Chi by Danish psychedelic band Pinkunoizu. Each frame is printed out on a slightly unreliable inkjet printer to accentuate a stop-motion quality.

Also fun is Morris’s collaboration with Casey Raymond for DJ Shadow’s Scale It Back.

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Shen Jie: Run!

Shanghai-based Shen Jie explores a series of associations in Run!.

Note: A couple of the associations are NSFW. For those of you sensitive to strobing, be aware that it is used heavily in this film.

Nando Costa: FITC Toronto 2013

Nando Costa takes entomology as a jumping off point for his FITC Toronto 2013 title sequence.

Hat tip to Stash.

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Célia Rivière: Chérie 25 Channel Launch

Célia Rivière directs this sophisticated spot for the launch of Chérie 25.
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Eran Hilleli: ING “Numbers”

Tel Aviv-based Eran Hilleli directs a lovely realization of illustrations by The Project Twins. Made with Avi Yani, Or Bar El, Lior Ben Horin, and Ori Toor at XYZ Studios.

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Noah Harris: Google Chrome “Speedbots”

Whimsical whizzing bots directed by Noah Harris and BBH London/Blinkink/Glassworks.

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Peter Lowey: Gotye “Save Me”

Melbourne-based Peter Lowey takes me back to the classic Liquid Television days in his music video for Gotye’s Save Me.

Credits
Directed and Animated by Peter Lowey
3D modeling and inbetweening by Andrew Bowler
Compositing by Glenn Hatton

Scott Benson: Toh Kay “With Any Sort Of Certainty”

Editor’s Note:
Scott’s video has been taken off of Vimeo/YouTube due to legal crossfire between a record label and the artist. As soon as it is back online we will re-embed it.

We last featured Pittsburgh-based Scott Benson when he released his cosmic music video for The Murf’s Rendezvous. His new music video for Toh Kay‘s With Any Sort Of Certainty is a story about not being ok, and trying to be.

I’m loving how Scott’s style is developing. Check out the sequence starting at 2:05 as the photographer leaves his office to see a brilliant combination of his angular, flat character designs combining with lush lighting and dimensional cues. At 3:11, as the protagonist’s world starts to break apart, the pixels tear away as well.

I highly recommending heading over to Scott’s blog to read more about the music video’s genesis. Here’s an excerpt:

I normally write big long statements about pieces like this, about what I was trying to say and whatnot. But this time I’m not. I’m interested in what, if anything, people take from it. I will say it’s a story about not being ok, and trying to be. Some of this vid is about ideas I think about a lot, and some of it is more directly about my own life. I guess everything anyone makes is like that.

And Tomas’ great song really pushed it in the direction in ended up going. We were apparently mind-melded at some point last fall when all of this was coming together, as I think the vid and the song comment on each other nicely. I think. But I don’t know. That’s your call. Either way, I am grateful to Tomas for trusting me with an open brief, and allowing me to go nuts with the story and direction.