A brief history of pretty much everything is a 2100 pages flipbook made by 17 year old animator Jamie Bell. Here are a few words from Jamie Bell page on Youtube:
This is the final piece for my AS art course, a flipbook made entirely out of biro pens. It’s something like 2100 pages long, and about 50 jotter books. I’d say I worked on and off it for roughly 3 weeks.
Song is French Cancan by Jaques Offenbach.
Additional sounds credited to Valve, specifically from their game Team Fortress 2.
Other stuff is from the 300 trailer and O Little Town of Bethlehem.
Gary’s doctor is determined to cure him of his fear of doors but Gary does not want to leave the comfortable and beautiful world he’s imagined for himself, he is happy where he is. Unfortunately his psychiatrist wont give up so easily.
The character’s body language is superb with plenty of subtleties that makes them feel really there, they’re very believable. Try watching it without sound (after you’ve seen it with sound, or you will spoil a fantastic finale!) and you’ll see what I mean the words almost become unnecessary. It’s really a joy to watch.
And here’s an insightful ‘making of’ documentary of the film.
I have a weakness for this kind of retro looking animations, this nicely executed short was created by Matthew Kalinauskas for his animation programme studies at the Sheridan Institute of Technology in 2008, with music by Monica Corey. the use of colour blocks in the backgrounds, the colour palette and even the boiling line, all have that warmth of early animation that could only be achieved by cell painting.
In fact if you dig around Matthew’s blog you’ll see that all his illustrative work has those qualities. I was looking at his side project Mime: A True Story, which I have to say I can’t wait to see, and you can still see the same tone of voice, even though is a completely different project, his style is very robust and consistent.
I find it extraordinarily satisfying when I bump into traditional animation sequences with great acting and emotion. This short by Vladimir Kooperman is truly fetching in that sense. Perhaps it’s all down to the fact that I reckon our dog would behave in a situation like the one depicted in the film. I really felt like sticking my hand through the computer screen and help the little guy out.
Vladimir animated this during his 4th year at Sheridan Animation in 2008. It took 5 months of storyboarding, 2 weeks of design and 3 months of production (Hand drawn, Photoshop painting, After Effects compositing). During 2009 C Block been screened in a few festivals around the world. Kooperman is currently animating at Pixar.
A traffic pedestrian sign is understandably fed up with his job until he discovers that there’s more to life than posing and discovers dancing.
A couple of kids live in a small piece of floating land, the boy likes inventing machines to help him fly even if he gets hurt in the process, luckily his friend is always around to give him a helping hand. It has a fetching style of illustration and character design.
A boy eats everything in his path but he doesn’t know when to stop. This is a major project by Australia based animator Kim Young Ha (aka Flew) for his RMIT Animation course. Kim says “I am really interested in human nature and how people react to problems. Sometimes, unexpected things happen and one may have to take an unexpected step to deal with the situation. Greedy Boy explores behaviour that I think everyone is capable of and what happens if we can’t control it.”
I love this kind of overly stretchy feel that you can (so far) only achieve by hand drawn traditional animation, Kim has given the character a naive and likable personality, you can see the insatiability in his eyes and the more his greed grows, the more fantastical his world seems. Fantastic and empty, I should say. Enjoy!
This slick duotone animation is based on a Taoist fable, which tells the story of a battle between two countries over territories on a tiny snail’s horn. Big and Small are not mere limited to the visual, but also refer to the psychological. Territory is Wei Hou’s first animation production, it’s also his graduation project at Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design in Halle, Germany in 2009. Wei currently works and live in Germany.
It has been screened at the Beijing Film Academy — Animation Academy Award 2009, The Smalls Showcase 2009, Holland Animation Festival 2009, The Bitfilm Festival 2009 and many more.
Directed and animated by Wei Hou, sound design by Marcus Illgenstein and music by Stephan Kloss.
This is another beautiful end-of-course short animation created by 5 talented Gobelins students, the clip was not only made for fun and passion but also, like all shorts, to be seen by people… and you could also say that this one was made to be touched. It has such a tactile delivery of textures and colours you’ll feel immersed in its universe from the early frames.
This is the end of course film of 5 Gobelins students: a collaboration between Jérémie Moreau, David Francis, Rony Hotin, Baptist Rogron, Gaelle Thierry and Maïlys Vallade. The story of a lighthouse keeper who suddenly wakes up from his sleep by a particularly large insect.
The attention to detail is remarkable and the combination of techniques works quite well. The only thing I found wrong with the animation is that is not longer, I wish I could see what happens next and then what happened after that and so on. Amazing work as always you Gobelin talented people!
