"The Music Scene" (2010)

Creator:

Directimated by A.F.Schepperd
Commissioned by Ninjatune Records
Music by Blockhead

Concept:

This is a music video which mainly tell a dramatic story about the media.(1) It happens in in an age after humans beings have disappeared from the earth, only animals are left, and all the entertainment stuff we left behind us. The entertainment, sensing it has no purpose without humans,(2) tries to get animals interested in it by creating programming for them, however, they don’t care, and they only care about the natural world around them. So the entertainment takes them and tries to create human beings out of them. It succeeds, but eventually this all falls apart and things go back.

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Design: 

The designer creates a totally different, beautiful and colorful universe. In the media world, the things they showed are colorful, fantastic. But that is meaningless without human beings and the animals do not care the content even it is about the things they are interested in. The contrast between the media world and the real world brings a huge visual impact for the audiences and, with the desire to be watched, the media combined the animals and create human beings from them. The process, like disassemble the animals into colorful parts and melt into different shape then join a huge river, is fantastic.(3,4)

At the end, with the fail to create human beings, the big TV media fall apart and back to dark color, leaving the colorful animals prevail.

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Edit/animation:

The idea of the animator is translated directly to paper (or screen) with nothing getting in-between, just how it should be.(5) Other than some designed re-use the frames to create visual impact, Schepperd didn't lean on the re-use of scenes and make it to 5 minutes. Then the most amazing thing about this video is the way Schepperd keeps all of his ideas readable.(6,7,8) The color is gorgeous, the spacing and timing are flawless, and the energy is undeniable. But above all that, it's never busy, it's never incomprehensible. This guy does not just know how to draw, he knows how to deconstruct, and put back together again. (http://www.cartoonbrew.com/music-videos/the-music-scene-by-anthony-francisco-schepperd-24567.html)

Over all, the colors are great in both the muted part and the wild part. The animation is ridiculously smooth and flowing.

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BEAT (2012)

Creator:

Story, Direction & Animation: Or Bar-El
Drums: Dror Goldstein
Sfx: Joni Bar Ilan
Compositing: Tammuz Kay
Rigging and TD: Yair Halpern

Concept: 

This is Or Bar-El’s graduation film from the Bezalel Academy of Arts & Design, Jerusalem, Israel. The story is mainly about a guy working in a huge cubic world and his job is to draw the same squares again and again. The purpose is to show that sometimes, when people work under a specific situation, the rules may kill their creativity. Like most people in their professional lifetimes will have someone say, “Think outside of the box.” (http://www.shortoftheweek.com/2012/05/05/beat/) 

Design: 

The designer build a simplified cubic world with a stop motion animation style(1,2,3,4,5), which tells the audiences this character is on behalf of a group of people who have to do their job by a strong rhythm which could not change, like some industry workers in our real life. The box-shaped environment, like the character, table, pen, chair and clock, give people the feeling that everything is boring and that make people’s mind become an empty box as well. For the color, the designer create a gray world which indicate the work is boring and hopeless, however in the character’s heart, the color is bright red, which imply that he does not belong to this world and there is hope inside his mind(6,9). 

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Edit/animation:

The soundtrack plays a significant role in this video. At the beginning, all the animation exactly follows the rhythm i.e. the clock moving, picking up the pen and the drawing process. Additionally, the animation of the camera makes the feeling more obvious especially for the scene for the inner part of the character. Besides, with the 3D tools, that allows for a smooth camera movement to cover the scene while the choppy character animation techniques mimic the soundtrack. Or Bar-El then switches it up during the protagonist’s fantasy sequences, making the movement dynamic and seamless.

 ( http://www.shortoftheweek.com/2012/05/05/beat/) 

When the character realized his inner jazz, the pace becomes faster(9,10,11,12). He struggled to back the original work at first but failed. He trys to control that, however, the feeling is so strong and nothing could stop him from drawing crazily. Finally he find that the sound comes from his heart and after this realization, he embraces the fire inside and continues his capricious behavior. Over all, this is a nice statement for the people who wants to escape the routine of day to day work in all of us. Creativity comes from our chaos and our hearts.

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The thought of you (2010)

Creator:

Ryan J Woodward

PS: When you watch this video, I highly recommend you to have a check of these websites: https://vimeo.com/21096567 and http://ryanwoodwardart.com/ It is all about the stories behind the Thought of You. I have to say this animation is probably the best one I have ever seen recently, even one single frame could be a master piece.

Concept: 

This is a story mainly about love, dance and the relationship in memory between the two lovers. The sketch style combined with the beautiful music make this video like a visual poetry.

The story’s emotional range is quite extraordinary, from the sweet restlessness of new love to the all-absorbing infatuation of passion at its peak to the hollow longing for a lover gone.( http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2010/12/07/ryan-woodward-thought-of-you/)

Design: 

Obviously, there is not much technology skill but the ability the designer have. In order to create this short film, Ryan drew 4441 frames. With the brown paper background, the simple dance animation which build on a high sketch skill make this film almost perfect.

There is not too much color, only black and white for the dancers(1,2,3). If you stop in a specific frame, you will notice all the shapes of the characters are simple and nothing special, however, with all the frames connected, that adversely reminded of some lover I once was, some partner I once had, the bitter regrets, and the delicacy and beauty of life, all at once. Relationships can be like that(4,5). They come back to you quickly, rejoicing in the passion that exploded from within, but then, in the end, they return to nothing. ( http://www.tentimesone.com/thought-of-you-emotion-in-animation/)

It’s not often an animator brings this kind of skill, but the expression in his drawings, at once profoundly simple but deep as an ocean, is a painfully beautiful expression of the dance choreographer, rendered with a depth and tenderness that’s hard to deny.( http://www.tentimesone.com/thought-of-you-emotion-in-animation/)

 Emotion is undeniable in his technique, and unless you’re a stone, your eyes will well with tears. 

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Edit/animation:

Needless to say, the animation is incredible. Even though Ryan is not a dancer, the quality and creativity with which he interpreted these dance movements feels as though he could be. Additionally, the details of this film, like the offering of a hand, the presentation of a foot, the turn of a head, look so nature and extremely appropriate(6,7). And by the way, the sweet song in the video is titled The World Spins Madly On by the Weepies. ( http://www.tentimesone.com/thought-of-you-emotion-in-animation/)

One thing I liked is how this project went from concept to stage to screen, where the process involved a great deal of collaboration along the way. I love how the music informs the physical dancers, who then in turn inform the animation( http://avoision.com/2010/12/07/thought_of_you_lovely_dance_an.php) .

Finally, indeed this is a sad love story(8,9), at the end, the man left the women and the color also tern in to gray, however, the combination of several disciplines makes much more sense for the audiences’ inner feeling, rather than the outer looks.

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the monk & the monkey (2010)

Creators:

Director:

Brendan Carroll (co-director, storyboard)

Shant Ergenian(co-director, animator,)

Francesco Giroldini(co-director, animator, storyboard)

Music: Erez Koskas

Sound editor: Gadi Raz

Concept:

The name of this video is “the monk and monkey”, which tells a story about a boy who wants to become a monk. In order to become a monk, the boy have to finish the final task and prove himself that he can be a monk. The task seems easy, however, there is one enemy, a monkey. After a intense journey, the boy finally realize what is the true value of the task. The purpose of this short film tell us that sometimes, to become success does not means to gain something important, the point is that what the person paid or gave up.

Design:

As a short video, the designers make a very simple story. A boy with a dream to become a monk, climes up to a top of a mountain then fights for his destiny. So there are mainly two characters, the boy and the monkey. With a cartoon 3D style, both of them have a big head and little exaggerated eyes, combined with bright colors that make them looks lovely(3,4). For the background, the designers make most of the items quite simple and thick, like the stones, trees and leaves are all quite big(2). 

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 Edit/animation:

This motion graphic is a 3D cartoon. The camera use and the animation is really good especially for the face expression. In terms of the story, the setup is done in about 20 seconds and the main part begins with the boy finding the secret fruit(6) which grows on an ancient tree. With the back ground color and the atmosphere changing, designers suggest that the boy had patiently waited for a long time, when the time finally come, monkey jump out and grab the fruit while the boy going to take it(7). After that, the pace of the story begins to speed up. After running for a long winding distance, they reach a dead end(8,9). Suddenly, with the fear and carelessness, the monkey falls down. At the same time, the boy grabs the secret fruit and the monkey(10). It is like all the animation stopped at that point, however the music still goes very fast which shows that they get into a very dangerous situation, and also tell the audiences that the boy is facing a tough choice, to save the monkey or take back the fruit and let the monkey fall to death. With about several seconds’ hesitation, the boy finally chooses to save the monkey. Also the music stops for a while and then comes with a positive rhythmand make the audiences thinking about the meaning behind the story. Over all, the models, animation and music are perfectly matched with each other, although there are some small mistakes (like the ear in picture 11), the story is significantly good.

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Mac 'n' Cheese (2011)

Creators: 

Tom Hankins: Art director

Roy Nieterau: Technical director, lead animator and animation supervisor 

Gijs van Kooten: Director(storyboard, background and third animation)

Guido Puijk: Animator and modeler

Concept: 

This title of this motion graphic is “Mac ‘n’ Cheese”. The video shows a story about two guys, one strong named Mac and another one skinny called Cheese, playing a game like cat and mouse. With a series of fight and wrack, Mac finally catch up Cheese then the rules change and the skinny guy become the “cat”. The purpose of this animation is to tell people that someone looks vicious sometimes does not mean he is a bad guy and everything could change.

Design: 

The color of this animation mainly is bright color, such as the bright red and orange for the land, the bright blue for the sky. Then some dark color for the road, cars and characters. Additionally, the designer has a strong sense of color balance, which makes every frame or scenes not too bright or too dark, for instance, if the background color is bright, the foreground color will be dark, if the left side color is bright, the right side color will be dark(1,2,3,4). With these highly contrasty colors, the designer describe a quite intense environment and with exaggerated shape of the environment and motion of the characters(5,6,7), the audiences could easily emerge into the story and follow the story developing.

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Edit/animation:

Tools used:

- Autodesk Maya

- Eyeon Fusion

- Pixologic Zbrush

- Adobe Photoshop

- TVPaint

- Bazillion peanut butter jelly sandwiches

The story is build by 3D model and render in cartoon style, which could easily make the animation convincing and attract the audiences. At the beginning, the director use several short cuts to show that this is a fast pace animation and all the story is about catch and run(8). However, a fast pace does not mean the rhythm is fast all the time. After a intense scene, the pace will slow down and let the audience have a short break and give them time to figure out what is going on, then another fast pace scene will come and bring the audiences into next stage. i.e. when the guys are running in the tunnel, everything is so fast that the director just use fast-changing frames to tell the situation is so dangerous and suddenly they run out of the tunnel then fall down to the cliff, everything just like stopped. When the strong guy find some drug and inject to himself, another fast pace scene comes. Besides, the interest point is that at the end, after all the set up make the audiences believe the strong guy Mac will beat Cheese and all of a sudden, the game end and roles change, which give a funny ending to the audience(9).

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