Music Video of the Week #5

This weeks video is from Jakob Dylan's first solo album titled "Seeing Things" for the song "Evil is Alive and Well". Exploring the subject of traditional and external terms of the devil inside all of us.

Trilogy Week #39 - Jim Henson Studios

Now this is the end of animation month, and I know puppetry isn't exactly animation, but I feel it still has some of the characteristics of animation, from set design, character design, voice acting, and making an inanimate object come to life. And no one does that better than the Jim Henson Studios.  So here are three very different films that came out of the genius of one the most influential production studios in film history.

Music Video of the Week #4

This video is for The Shins song "The Rifle's Spiral" off their latest album, Port of Morrow. The video was conceptualized by Emmy-winning director Jamie Caliri and tells the story of a battle between good and evil magicians."The Rifle's Spiral" features a lone musician, three sketchy men and a transformative, and adorable, bunny. Each of the characters assume distinct personalities and mannerisms despite their seemingly restrictive wooden, clay and paper bodies as they battle it out in the name of magic. Caliri was able to interpret "The Rifle's Spiral" how he pleased. Taking inspiration from the work of illustrator Edward Gorey, and from Martin Scorsese’s film Hugo. This creative liberty occasionally is a bit too literal, but overall allowed for a story of trickery, deception and whimsy to prevail."The Rifle's Spiral" works like an epic as a song alone; the borderline grand pop drums carry it, with James Mercer's vocals almost telling the folklore of the magicians themselves. Caliri has a created work for a range of clients, including the credits for "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events" and Marcy Playground's "Sex and Candy."

Trilogy Week #38 - Japanese Animation

Japanese animation or anime, is a genre all its own, a whole different animal. Completely different in tone and scale from American animation. The character designs are generally the same, but the wide variety of story and moods that style can portray is where anime is superior. They can pull of drama, action, and violence the a way that western animation can't. So if you are new to anime, let this be your initiation.

ZEA

This is a cool video that I'm sure you've never seen before. I thought it was interesting enough to be featured on my blog, so enjoy what you think it might be.

Music Video of the Week #3

A music video for the song "Slow Show" by the National. Directed by Tobias Gundorff Boesen. A lot of Out of the Forest was shot on location in forests around Viborg, Denmark, and the presence of prim and proper bunnies in this natural setting lends the film a magical flavor. As the bunnies enjoy a picnic under the moon light, a wolf comes to change the mood. A very compelling and beautiful animation.

Trilogy Week #37 - Stop Motion Animation

I have been fascinated with stop-motion animation as far back as I can remember. I always knew there was something special in the way it was made, that regular animation wasn't. And it is still a field of art that I still get excited about when I new feature or short is made. So I hope if you haven't seen these three movies before, you'll go out and get them, and enjoy them as much as I did.

Music Video of the Week #2

The animated music video this week is for the song "Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise" By The Avett Brothers. The indie rock band from Concord North Carolina. The Song is off their major label debut album "I and Love and You" which was produced by Rick Rubin who if you don't know is a legend in the music industry. Producing some of the greatest albums of all time, including Johnny Cash's "American Recordings", The Beastie Boys "Lisenced To Ill", and The Mars Volta's " De-Loused in the Comatorium". So safe to say, you're in good hands with this Avett Brothers album. This video was animated by animator Jason Mitcham, whos style of painted animation goes so well with the music from the Avett Brothers. It's like a chocolate and peanut butter combination.

Trilogy Week #36 - CG Animation

When feature length CG animation came on the scene in 1995 with Toy Story, and thought, this new style of animation can do know wrong. My thinking was I imagine every one of these movies has got to be very expensive to make, (which they are) so there's no way the studios are going to make these films with mediocre stories or characters. Oh how wrong I was. I went to see every CG movie I could get my hands on, and quickly realized that the majority of these new creations were pure crap. Shrek, Ice Age, Meet the Robinsons, Robots, all horribly bad. I soon found out the reason for this digital shit was due to studios thinking, Pixar has made CG films gross millions of dollars, we need to get on that. So studios started pushing pre-maturely made scripts into the pipelines thinking if these bad stories go through the CG filter it will make the movies better. Well that was not the case, and that wave of garbage is still going strong. So you have to play prospector to find the little nuggets of gold in this hollywood river of awful CG movies.

Music Video of the Week #1

I'm starting something new agian. I'll be featuring one of my favorite music videos each week. Since I've announced that August is animation month, each video will be an animated one.


To start of this new feature, I'm starting with one of my favorite songs of all time. Radiohead's "Paranoid Android". Written by singer Thom Yorke, the songs is significantly influenced by The Beatles, "Happiness is a Warm Gun", and Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody". And named after the robot Marvin the Paranoid Android from "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy". 


The video was created by Magnus Carlsson, swedish creator of the animated show "Robin" which the band was fans of. They deliberately didn't send Carlsson any lyrics for the songs, because they wanted his interpretation of what he thought the song was about, and didn't want the video to be too literal. The result is a funny but twisted tale of two friends walking through their town, and encountering a variety of weirdos that live in their community.


The Song went to number 3 on the UK singles charts, and on Rolling Stones' "500 Greatest Songs of All Time". And the video was on heavy rotation on MTV, sometimes playing 12 times a day, but was censored due to some brief nudity.