some words to not

so far the cutest bit i've spotted here at siggraph: jun fujiki's ole coordinate system, which lets you interactively create m.c.esher-like 2d/3d visual illusions virtually inhabited by little guys obeying the laws of the particular projection you're currently viewing.

here's the movie clip

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i don't remember which u.s president said that the only thing new is the history we don't know, but there's something to it. it also seems that anything new has already been done in the 60s.

today i was reminded once more of norman mclaren's pas de deux, a classic milestone in visual effects, one which ties in very strongly with my tendency to explore time and space in my own work.

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there's little i can say about clemens kogler's Le Grand Content. just watch it.

it really made me smile today, and also was a wonderful opener to the 'advanced photoshop and elementary zen buddhism' class i taught this afternoon.

having watched some werner herzog movies recently, i couldn't help but thinking it was him for a moment there...

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one of my all-time favorite films is the 1988 oscar-winning short creature comforts by nick park, who would later go on to make 'wallace and gromit'.

the idea was that they recorded a soundtrack of people in the zoo asking them what the animals might be thinking (with additional acting and interviews with shut-ins), and then animated over that soundtrack with clay figures.

if you re-watch it, notice that in some cases, the soundtrack doesn't shift tone, but the animation shifts pose, creating a very tangible shift in the attitude of the character. in general, i think that this is a good movie to watch if you're into the whole relationship between sound and image in cinema (as is 'the perfect human' by joergen leth, but with a completely different tone).

anyway... it turns out that a 'creature comforts' tv series is about to come out in the u.s - and judging by the clips they put on youtube it should be quite funny.

then i found out that there were already two seasons of creature comforts in the uk which i missed (i guess i'm not really up to date), but which i now ordered on dvd from amazon.

and finally - watch this redubbing of creature comforts with some politicians' quotes.

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motorola has sponsored a really cute animated ad for some mobile movie service (i assume) featuring a rabbit smoothly transitioning between the iconic shots of a dozen or so cinema classics.

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impressive (if a bit slow and sticky) animation on this new adidas ad (local link).

it also reminds me of one of my animation teachers who used to say to us that even though it's in 3d, you should avoid the constant camera fly-around effect. "i get it! you can put the camera *anywhere*. amazing."

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smile is a half-live-action and half-animated clip by two israeli filmmakers, yuval markovich and noam abta, apparently of the sam spiegel film school in jerusalem.

read more...

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an interesting interactive play of images, curves, and motion at nfctd, exploring the aesthetic possibilities of flash.

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brooklyn-based artist gregory barsamian builds sculptural zoetropes using strobe lights. zoetropes are those 19th century animation machines where you have a number of images printed on a spinning disk exposed one-by-one through a peeking hole. the animation effect is achieved (as in cinemas) by preventing motion blur through the periodic hiding of the images.

similarly, barsamian builds a series of sculptures on a rotating platform, and overcomes motion blur by strobing the scene in sync with the rotation. the result are wonderfully eerie creations that must be even more impressive when you're in the same room with them.

they're so pretty, i'll forgive his annoying flash-based website.

sidenote: you can really tell when i've been spending my time writing a scientific paper (as you can when i've been reading amis).

via leo.

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for smaller animation and special effects houses, shorts are mostly a way to escape the daily drag of answering to some annoying marketing exec of a client who has absolutely no sense of aesthetics, and instead of guiding you fills your ear with meaningless buzzwords. it's something you can work on after hours and with little or no restrictions, a place to vent the angers that accumulate after producing one too many bar mitzvah page peel effect or heavily photoshopped yogurt supermodel.

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i'm going to attend a wedding in mexico, for which the hosts have asked us to bear as gifts 'trabajos artisticos como musica, fotos, videos, poemas y cuentos para poner durante la fiesta y todo tipo de objetos funcionales y no funcionales hechos con sus propias manos,' or in english 'works of art like music, photos, videos, poems, and stories that can be used during the party, as well as any kind of functional and nonfunctional objects made with your own hands.'

so i decided to draw a flipbook for the happy couple. i love the look of hand-drawn animation, and i hope they will, too. i animated the drawings and edited the clip to some music.

then i bound it with some loungy velour paper. you can see a gallery of crappy cellphone cam pictures here.

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ok, what the hell is this, and who approved this script for public broadbast?

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dog judo. what more can i say?

thanks to jess.

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laith bahrani's amazing animation music video to radiohead's 'creep' reminds me why i decided to study animation, and how much you can get out of this genre with just one artist and lots of dedication.

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one of the coolest designs i've seen in animation was the music video for röyksopp's 'remind me'. it was shown as part of resfest 2003's by design program (btw, an amazing collection of design-oriented video shorts).

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more award-winning and possibly finnish flash animation (thanks, ori).

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great art falls into two categories for me. it's either so good that it makes you want to create something yourself. or it's so good that it just makes you feel inadequate and ready to throw your own creativity out the window. the strange thing is that i can't quite figure out why some creations fall into one and others into the second category.

for your viewing pleasure -- amazing animation, minimalist sound and graphic design (thanks dagg):

http://www.tokyoplastic.com/drummachine.html

with all due respect, though, i gotta say that the whole trend of muji-white backgrounds is starting to get on my nerves. white seems to be to 2003/4 what #333333 was to 2001/2.

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