Pixar story artist Adrian Molina created this after-hours animated piece to inform California voters about Proposition 8, a ballot initiative designed to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry.

(Thanks, Alex Hirsch)

I couldn’t help and notice a similarity between this music video by Kristofer Strom of Sweden…

…and this signal film for Cartoon Forum 2008 directed by Regina Welker and Max Lang of Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg’s Institute of Animation.

I’m not suggesting that either idea was copied from the other. After all, non-descript blobby creatures straight out of a Pictoplasma book and cavorting in a real-world environment is hardly anything new. Still I thought it might be interesting to show two different animated approaches to a similar problem.

(Thanks, BitterAnimator, for the Cartoon Forum link)

I have no idea what it’s advertising and the idea is not exactly original, but this Diesel online viral titled “SFW—XXX” is silly and entertaining enough to merit a post. The commercial was directed by Keith Schofield of The Viral Factory and the spot’s animation directed by Neil McFarland at Big Animal.

(via Motionographer)

This excellent spot for the Royal Bank of Canada’s Blue Water Project is among those rare pieces of design-oriented animation in which an equal amount of thought is given to the movement of the artwork as to its production design. There’s only one cut in the entire commercial; the scenes flow smoothly into one another in a way that drives home the commercial’s subject matter—water. The spot is directed by Convert for The Ebeling Group and designed by Jon Klassen, who has posted his illustration designs for the commercial on his blog. Klassen also co-directed a fine student film at Sheridan a few years ago called An Eye For Annai.

A new series of British TV spots, featuring Paddington Bear for Marmite, are quite refreshing. They mimic the cartoon series from the 70’s and are made the old fashioned way - animated by hand, using stop motion, 2D and cut-out animation techniques. Here’s a short making-of video:

(Thanks, Scott Harpel)

This new Nike commercial featuring British sprinter Nicola Sanders is a real winner, particularly in its artful execution. The mixed-media approach combines stop-motion, CG and live-action in a surrealist rainbow-colored package. It’s out of Wieden+Kennedy (Amsterdam) with direction by Nieto, model-making and animation by Brice Lartigue and lead VFX by Damien Martin.

The director, Nieto, is better known as Luis Nieto, who broke onto the scene with his student film Carlitopolis (2006). His subsequent follow-up—Prof. Nieto Show—gave the impression that he might be a one-trick pony, but this commercial, along with others for Sprint and Peugeot, prove that Nieto has plenty of tricks up his sleeve.

United Airlines has unveiled five new animated spots for the Beijing Olympics. The commercial are elegant, visually-driven and beautiful to watch, just like the rest of the animated spots that the airline has produced in recent years. Pretentious to be sure, particularly for a carrier like United, but I still appreciate their attempts at fostering a more positive image by utilizing artistic animation. The ad agency responsible for these spots is the newly formed BDM, though two of its principals, Bob Barrie and Stuart D’Rozari, have been instrumental in United’s animation campaigns from the very beginning.

The real standout piece in this latest batch is “Sea Orchestra” (view hi-res version here) by Shy the Sun, the South African collective who also operates under the name The Blackheart Gang and who produced the short Tale of How. In this commercial, they combined hand-drawn textures and photographs into a brilliant and ornate CG package that is bursting at the seams with creativity. The commercial was produced in cinema resolution and I’m sure the visual effect of this on the bigscreen is overwhelming.

There are four other commericals in the series, including one by Ishu Patel. Click on each title below to watch a hi-res version:

“Two Worlds” — From the United press release: The commercial combines two different and distinctive animation styles created by directors SSSR, a Norwegian and Japanese team, who was responsible for the monochromatic world that was mostly computer-generated with a hand-crafted feel, and Gaelle Denis, a French director, who was responsible for the colorful fantasy world that uses using live action, computer generation and matte paintings, including textures such as Japanese rice paper.

“Heart” — From the press release: Using stop-motion animation and paper puppetry, California-based director Jamie Caliri and his team, place dimensional cardboard puppets in miniature sets that were shot frame by frame. The musical score for “Heart” is a piano duet of Rhapsody in Blue performed by Herbie Hancock and Lang Lang, who recently performed “Rhapsody in Blue” together at the 2007 Grammy Awards.

“Moon Dust” — From the press release: Ishu Patel, an Indian-born and Canadian-based animator, used his world-renowned back-lit technique in which a thin layer of plastic modeling clay is applied to a glass plate that has a 1000-watt light positioned beneath it and an animation camera above it.

“Butterfly” — From the press release: Polish director Aleksandra Korejwo manipulated colored salt using shed condor bird feathers on a black canvas positioned under a downward-facing camera.

“Muffin Man” is a new spot for Royal Bank of Canada directed by Tom and Mark Perrett (repped by Nexus Productions). The commercial uses CG to recreate a stop motion aesthetic complete with choppy timing, puppet-like designs and muted Seventies color palette. It’s a well done spot, no question about it, but I have mixed feelings about it. Frankly I’m getting tired of CG directors evoking charm in their work by cashing in on the audience’s fondness for older animation techniques. If you’re using CG, why not explore the inherent appeal in your chosen technique instead of using it to mimic a look from decades ago?

(via Motionographer)