The Piano

The Piano -- Aidan Gibbons

Very simple and very beautiful. An old man shares his life story with his young grandchild through music.

The song is: “Comptine d’un autre été: l’après midi” composed by: Yann Tiersen

A Charlie Brown Christmas

A Charlie Brown Christmas – Bill Meléndez, Charles M. Schulz

It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the materialism that surrounds the Christmas season… Join Charlie Brown on his struggle to discover the true meaning of Christmas.

Based upon the comic strip Peanuts, by Charles M. Schulz ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’ first aired on December 9, 1965. It was made on a shoestring budget, which is evident in the choppy style animation and more so in the audio production. Meléndez is said to be embarrassed that it continues to be aired every year in it’s original condition but any efforts to remaster it were vetoed by Schulz. Regardless of technical issues, this remains a true favourite and is an astonishingly beautiful story.

Dimensions of Dialogue (Možnosti dialogu)

Dimensions of Dialogue (Možnosti dialogu) – Jan Svankmajer, 1982

Dimensions of Dialogue is one of the better known of Jan Svankmajer’s films and is an example of the finest animation I have ever seen. Svankmajer’s ability to animate is akin to Rembrandt van Rijn’s ability to paint. It consists of three parts: “Eternal Dialog”, “Passionate Dialog”, and “Exhausting Dialog”. As with most of Svankmajer’s work it is surreal, dark, humorous, and rich with meaning.

Please Say Something

Please Say Something – David OReilly

I pretty much love everything David O’Reilly has ever done. I first saw his work at Edinburgh International Film Festival in 2005… The amazing music video for Venetian Snares ‘Szamar Madar’. Since this he has produced some awesome stuff, including a music video for U2, onstage visuals for MIA and a handful of amazing, mind bending shorts… Seriously… Mind bending… You have to watch them.

His work is kind of a mix between Sega 3D graphics, Chris Ware, Windows Paint and bad dreams.

I can’t wait to see his latest project Serial Entoptics… It looks very subtle compared to this… still very beautiful… although with Venetian Snares appearing on the trailer it could become explosive.

Check out all of his other works on his website: http://www.davidoreilly.com

Oktapodi

Oktapodi – Julien Bocabeille, François-Xavier Chanioux, Olivier Delabarre, Thierry Marchand, Quentin Marmier and Emud Mokhberi

Another amazing student animation from Gobelins. Enough said

A Trip to the Moon (Le Voyage dans la Lune)

Georges Méliès – A Trip to the Moon

A Trip to the Moon is very close to my heart for a number of reasons. It’s a short film about a group of astronomers that travel to the Moon, it’s one of the pioneers of early cinema, science fiction and and special effects and has been a huge inspiration to much of my work, most obviously in The Fool Looks at the Finger that Points to the Sky.

It’s arguably the earliest sci-fi movie ever made… Way back in 1902 before Star Wars had been invented, Méliès was using special effects to transport the audience into a world of fantasy. Using techniques developed by the Lumière brothers and Thomas Edison he created visions of space ships crashing into the Moon and exploding aliens that would have wowed audiences in a way that must have been similar to the bullet time scenes of The Matrix or the liquid metal T1000 from Terminator 2.

A Trip to the Moon has inspired many artists through the years and found it’s way into many areas of popular culture, the two that spring to mind are the amazing Smashing Pumpkins video for Tonight Tonight and the Moon from The Mighty Boosh. Unfortunately for Méliès it was Edison who made a fortune from the film by selling it to the American market and several years later his company went bankrupt and was bought by french movie company Pathé. To rub salt in the wound many of the other films he created were destroyed during World War I, apparently melted down to make army boots or recycled as new film. It wasn’t until 1932 that Méliès received proper recognition from the French arts community, the Cinema Society gave him a home in Château d’Orly  — which provided him a home and an opportunity to perform on stage until his death in Paris at 76 on Jan. 21, 1938.

You can find the French narrated version on the Internet Archive as well as the English version shown here, both are available for download in a variety of formats.

Krapooyo

Krapooyo – Yannick Puig

A sweet and funny tale. Yannick has made some other astounding animations so if you like this one go and check out his Yanim Studio website: http://www.yanim.net/

Download the Krapooyo movie here: http://krapooyo.free.fr

Rejected

Rejected – Don Hertzfeldt

This is hilarious… If you find absurdity funny… I do.

This was Hertzfeldt’s first film after college! It was released in 2000, won dozens of awards and was even nominated for an Oscar.

Red and BoxBot Responds

Red and BoxBot Responds – Andreas Normand Grøntved & Søren Bendt Pedersen

This short was made by two chaps in 48 hours as part of the 48h 3D jam 2007 in Stuttgart… Astonishing. Everything from boards, design to modelling animation and shading. It also has a great story.

Original score, done by René Brokop.

Søren Bendt Pedersen: http://sonobeno.blogspot.com/
Søren Bendt Pedersen: www.sota.dk

Kiwi!

Kiwi! -- Dony Permedi

How far would you go to achieve your dreams? This beautiful short was created for Dony’s Master Thesis Animation at The School of Visual Arts, MFA Computer Art, in New York City. There is a smaller downloadable version available from his website at http://www.donysanimation.com/Kiwi.htm and he has loads of other interesting stuff going on so check out his blog: http://madyeti47.blogspot.com