[ via Accelerating Future ]

[edit - 2009-01-31: youtube embeds of Peter and the Wolf Removed, due to them no longer existing on YouTube]

By some strange circumstance, I also came across the short film Sweet Salt by Katerina Athanasopoulou, which Suzie Templeton did set design on. It was constructed primarily in After Effects, and the screenshots of it look relatively amazing. ( also available on google photos ).

Father and Daughter by Michael Dudok De Wit.

“It’s midnight. A smattering of moonlight falls upon the forest floor. Two mechanical snails move slowly through the darkness. They confront one another and briefly take the measure each other’s powers before uniting in love play. With mounting ecstasy, their transparent bodies begin to glow, but just before climax a dark shadow looms over them…” (from the twitchfilm.net review).

458nm can be viewed on the No Fat Clips blog.
[See post to watch Flash video]

The Cags is a short 3D film from Russia, available as a DivX download, and quite amazing to watch.

The Movers and Shakers of 3D animation of 2005 also has some other interesting works, including the previously mentioned 90 degrees.

The reason I am writing about him here, is to key anyone who might be interested in to the fact that a collection of his works regarding language, the VOX 13 series, are online in full quality full length form at UbuWeb.

Taken in the aggregate, Vox 13 offers a grand circumnavigation of the subject of language. By turns it is a reflexive riff on reading, a hyperdimensional performance piece about gesture, a horror story told by a computer, an opera about the voice, a documentary on the transience of language, a metanarrative about the elements of story, an Edenic parable, a kinetic koan, an arch ideological satire, a joke about semiotics, a materialist metaphor, and a performance piece about communication. The opus considers what it means to read, what it means to listen, when it is that we speak, how words acquire meaning, what it means to write, who we listen to, how we listen, what speaks, other ways we can speak, what the voice is, where language can be found, what words do to time, what holds stories together, and how light shapes language. There are reflections on time and language and there are explorations of the places where speech and power seem to intersect. I offer a nod to Tom Phillips’ “A Humument,”, the Firesign Theatre, the Four Horseman, Sid Caesar, early Woody Allen, Julian Jaynes, the Sackners, W. H. Hudson, sehtraB dnaloR, and Ludwig Wittgenstein who, in one of his more jovial moments, announced that “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” Much of this work is a voluble illustration of that dictum.
- Peter Rose

Here is one work of particular interest for me, The Darkening.

(via vfxtalk.com)

What impacts will technological advancements like this have on filmmaking? An increase in the visual quality of lower budget films? An increase in the conceptual quality of lower budget films? A decrease in the cost of higher budget films?

My guess is that as technology improves the resolution and perceptual quality of digital representations of moving images, we will become just as accustomed to it as we have grown accustomed to the amazing (as seen from a perspective of someone in the 1970s) quality of DV. Cost will drop, and quality will increase, and creating quality films will be just as much of a challenge as before. Fancy technology doesn’t make you a better filmmaker, even though it’s tempting to think so sometimes. Of course, that doesn’t make emerging technology any less exciting.

Here is the YouTube version for streaming.

If you wish a higher quality copy to experience, here is a Quicktime version.
Rabbit

The Owl is a music video for the somewhat post-rock band I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness, by the excellent Emmanuel Ho. The interesting thing about this music video is that it was created entirely in After Effects, using primarily the Pen tool.

Maywa Denki are a group of artists and engineers in Tokyo, Japan. They are known for their creation of absurdly creative “nonsense machines“, and other works of electromechanical devices which are gloriously surreal in their purpose and functioning.

Here are some blog posts for further reading.

The Nonsense Machines of Maywa Denki
PopGadget – Maywa Denki
Suicide Bots – Maywa Denki
Hand Circus – Maywa Denki
Maywa Denki Homepage

Doll Face
A slightly interesting and notable example of a simple conceptual 3D animation by Andy Huang. ( There is also an interesting interview with him about the creation of Doll Face ). Evidence of the importance of conceptual intention in the creation of meaning. Animation is heralded for its ability to convey in a compressed time-space a matching complexity of meaning to long-form narrative works, is it not? Download the Original, or watch the Youtube embed below.

Dog
Shown this 3D stop-motion animation short by Suzie Templeton a long time ago by my associate Brad Hutchinson, and I was blown away by the beauty and intensity of this animation, and would enjoy sharing that with you now. There are a couple other films by Templeton watchable on Youtube, including her new 30 minute epic Peter and the Wolf.

90 Degrees
Shown this animation by my friend Fred Blasdel, I was amazed and inspired by how polished and flawless the work of students could be. Created by students at the excellent Gobelins school of animation in France, this 3D generated short possesses a very interesting element of the synchresis of the sound-design reinforcing the visual aspect and enhancing the conveyance of the narrative / meaning. This walks the line between music video and experimental short film; a delicious line of intrigue. A higher definition quicktime version of this can be watched here.