Short Film Friday: Le Royaume

by T. Keith Edmunds

‘Tis the triumphant return of your regularly scheduled Short Film Fridays. Barring any unforeseen catastrophes, we should be back to a weekly schedule now. Unless I forget, which is quite likely.

But not today! I have a film for today. It’s animated and it’s French. Don’t let the French part scare you, because the little dialogue there is consists mostly of grunts and vague vocalizations anyways.

What’s the theme or the moral? I haven’t decided. Perhaps it deals with environmentalism vs industrialization. Maybe it is about the quest for power and it’s inevitable consequences.

Or maybe it’s about a badass beaver with an axe.

You decide…

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Life, in the flash of a falling star

by Grant Hamilton

What goes through a meteorite’s mind, as it falls to earth? Is it joy? Fear? A little of both?

Only the mind of Sascha Geddert can tell you.

(from Vimeo, via tdw)

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Short Film Friday: French Roast

by T. Keith Edmunds

I almost missed it! My triumphant return as keeper of Short Film Fridays….I still have a few minutes of it being officially Friday, don’t I?

In any case, here’s the Oscar-nominated short French Roast. Enjoy.

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Short film Friday: A Gentleman’s Duel

by T. Keith Edmunds

This computer animated short has been floating around for quite a while (it was done in 2007), so you may have seen it. By Oscar-nominated Blur Studio, this short film is quite funny.

And I have a soft spot for steampunk stories.

Be sure to watch to the very end.

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An animated movie that’s not for kids

by Grant Hamilton

It’s long been settled that there are comic books for kids, but there’s also a place for graphic novels — graphic in the sense that they include drawn images, but also graphic in the sense that they are for mature audiences.

There’s no reason that the same principle couldn’t apply to animated movies — and yet, animated movies seem to mostly be reserved for family-friendly fare.

Well, not anymore. Check out the teaser trailer for “A.D”, a CG-animated zombie thriller:

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A brief history of evil

by Grant Hamilton

This is a fun five-minute animation that gives a brief overview on evil in Western culture. It’s incomplete, and it’s problematic in a few places, but it’s a student animation project, so I’m willing to give it a fair bit of leeway.

Moreover, the poor animator has apparently gotten slammed in the YouTube comments (more recent one are more positive, or spammy), having to edit the video’s info box to clarify patiently that, no, the video doesn’t claim that Elvis actually was evil, just that people at the time thought rock’n'roll was evil.

(Thanks, Ben!)

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Stop motion animation as you’ve never seen it

by T. Keith Edmunds

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Really cool movie cartoons

by Amy Breen

I randomly went on /film today — a site I hardly visit — but I’m glad I did. They had a post about an animator named Jim Horwat who has been making drawings based on movies. The extremely detailed and stylized drawings tell the story of the movie he’s chosen in a random sort of way.

The latest movie he has done is The Big Lebowski, which you can view here.

(Interestingly enough, if you try and right-click the images, a message comes up saying the images are copyrighted, and you cannot copy them. I should get that for my photos … )

He has also done The Goonies, Back to the Future, Evil Dead, and many more, which can be viewed here.

I find his style really interesting, and I love that he seems to specialize in campy horror movies and cult classics.

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Read a book!

by Amy Breen

I find it incredibly interesting that this video is using what can be considered black stereotypes (rap, booty-shakin’) in order to get people to stop living like stereotypes. Or, it could be a total joke with no meaning behind it, what do I know.

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Disney on repeat

by Amy Breen

I can’t tell if this video is an example of the laziness of Disney animators, or an example of just how formulaic their movies were that they could use the same scenes again.

(tip o’ my hat to BB)

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Cool stop-motion video

by Amy Breen

I love me some Fleet Foxes. And some stop-motion. So this is the perfect video for me!

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I like the 1966 one

by Grant Hamilton

(from Slashfilm, via Draplin)

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The touchtone genius

by Amy Breen

I saw this over on newgrounds ages ago, but thought of it again recently, so I thought I’d share!

The song was created by Andrew PANTS who will take people’s request, no matter how strange, and compose a song out of it. You can check out his other songs here, like the request for a short, poppy song about how to kill zombies.

The animation was done by someone who admired Andrew’s work. From the artists explanation in the newgrounds entry:

After listening to all of Andrew’s music based on wacky requests, I really wanted to request my own. I had the idea trying to figure out what would fit Andrew’s style and be fun to animate. The result screamed of animation potential. It then basically animated itself and asked to be put on newgrounds

I think it’s a pretty interesting concept. Request one of your own!

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