Manchester-based vfx house AHD Imaging created this timely and clever Internet viral for the holidays:

“AHD168 is a computer generated robot who was written out of a TV advert due to credit crunched budgetary constraints. AHD168 now spends his days wandering the streets looking for a meaningful role in an animated TV project.”

(Thanks, Aaron Bynum)

YouTube user ‘VidResidue’ has uploaded a couple of rare 1950s animated commercials worth sharing. The first is a Kool-Aid spot directed by Tex Avery and designed by Ed Benedict. I think it’s amazing that Avery’s last theatrical cartoon—Sh-h-h-h—was released in 1955 when he was only 47 years old. Tex’s flame burned out prematurely. As much as I enjoy his TV commercials (of which I’ve only seen a dozen or so out of hundreds that he directed), it’s disheartening that one of animation’s greatest directors has a late body of work that is comprised entirely of lightweight advertising jobs and cheap TV shows. (Earlier this year I did a lengthier post about Avery’s late-career.)

Next is a Peter Pan Peanut Butter spot designed by Tom Oreb. I’m guessing the director of the spot is Charles Nichols.

Here is the model sheet that Tom Oreb created for the TV version of Peter Pan characters (click for bigger version).

Animator Michele D’Auria has produced a beautiful viral short for Honda Italia. It tells of Soichiro Honda’s initial inspiration for his motor company and, in its way, becomes inspiring itself. Watch it here.

Here’s a neat find. Chuck Howell, curator at The Library of American Broadcasting at the University of Maryland, came across this two-page article from the Oct. 1950 issue of a trade publication called Advertising Agency and Advertising And Selling (I assume two trade organs had merged to come up with that mouthful). “Clipping Board” was a regular feature that focused on art and graphic design trends, covering everything from billboards to direct mail to (as in this case) the still-new
medium of television (click on thumbnails below for enlargements). These pages detail the creation of a TV commercial, for Sealtest ice cream, produced at Tempo Productions and directed by Bill Tytla (the article mis-spells his name “Wm. Tytle”).

Some of the most influential and popular TV commercials of the 1950s were the Bert and Harry Piels Beer spots created by UPA (and later on animated by Terrytoons). Much of their popularity was due to the great dialogue tracks provided by Bob Elliot and Ray Goulding (aka Bob and Ray) and the appealing animation directed by Gene Deitch. If you’ve been wondering where you could see these, Asifa-Hollywood has just posted a whole slew of the early ones on their Animation Archive blog. Go there now!

I like the simplicity of these two new line-animation spots for the Detroit Institute of the Arts, which were made to help increase attendance at the museum. The animation is hand-drawn and composited in After Effects. They were directed by Julian Grey of Toronto’s Head Gear Animation. Check out both ads below:

CREDITS
Title: “Son of Hatman” and “Thinker”
Client: Detroit Institute of Arts
Creative Agency: Perich Advertising + Design, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Director: Julian Grey
Production Company: Head Gear Animation, Toronto
Producer: Kathryn Rawson
Animators: Sean Branigan, Julian Grey
Compositor: Nick Fairhead

I love this new channel ident for BBC2 directed by Guilherme Marcondes (of Tyger fame). I also love the behind-the-scenes photos that Guilherme posted on his Flickr. He writes about the spot:

This spot was one in a series of six (each directed by a different person) promoting some of the hosts of the most popular shows on BBC2. Bruce Parry presents some wild reality shows in the channel, like “Tribe” and “Amazon”. My job was too create a visual interpretation of Bruce’s own concerns about environment and life in a materialistic society.

We built the “ultimate exploitation machine”, powered by human beings, ravaging the land, sucking nature on one side and spitting consumer goods on the other. We placed the scene inside a mirror box to create a sense of boundlessness to the destructive process imposed by the machine.

Animation credits are:
Direction: Guilherme Marcondes
Production designers: Ryan Heck and Andy Byers
Design: Guilherme Marcondes and Douglas Alves
Animation and Compositing: Guilherme Marcondes
Additional Compositing: John Harrison

This beautiful anti-gun violence TV spot was directed by French animator, designer and illustrator Caroline Attia. This is her first commercial for a U.S. client, Citizens for a Safer Minnesota and Martin/Williams Advertising in Minneapolis. The dialogue was originally conceived and recorded for a radio campaign. Peter Barg of Z Animation exec produced, and Attia designed and animated the entire spot in traditional 2D from her Paris studio (with color done in Photoshop CS3 and compositing/editing in After Effects CS3). Click here for a high rez version.