Nick Uff’s new videos for Portishead songs “The Rip” and “We Carry On” are two of my favorite pieces of animation so far this year. This article from the Bournemouth Echo says that the 44-year-old Uff makes his living as a gardener, which helps to explain why I’ve never heard of him or seen his beautiful hand-drawn animation before. The lo-fi look is authentic; Uff shoots all his work on 16mm. He says about his work, “I don’t storyboard my ideas, but let the films go where they take themselves. There’s all sorts of ideas in there - things that have happened, a bit of social comment - like a stream of consciousness you could say. Each frame has to be different, animated films cannot stand still. That means they can be quite difficult on the eye, especially in the style I use, it’s very busy, a bit scratchy.”

“The Rip”

“We Carry On”

Dutch director and animator Fons Schiedon, previously featured on Cartoon Brew and quickly becoming a favorite director of mine, just finished a lovely looking music video for Amsterdam-based band VOICST. Schiedon tells me, “The video was completed in just about five weeks from animatic to final (a schedule that leans towards insanity I must admit), working with basically the same compact team that previously worked with me on the MTV ASIA Mobbed series (2006). Technically, we’re looking at cel-style Flash-animation and Adobe Illustrator/Photoshop/Maya backgrounds in an AfterEffects composite.” The character animation was created by Brazilian studio Birdo. Watch the video and read a ‘making-of’ on Fons’ site.

One of the most rewarding parts of running Cartoon Brew is hearing from artists who are inspired by the items that we post here. Here are letters from two regular readers who have recently completed short animated pieces. The first letter is from Jerry Pyle:

“my friend, dion labriola and i just finished a music video for singer/songwriter daniel ahearn. we employed a few animation techniques that i thought you might be interested in seeing. in addition to the flash animation you see at the beginning, middle and end of the video, we used cut out animation for much of the song and for the chorus, we used an “eight-frame-fade” technique where we printed out every eighth frame, stapled them all together and nailed them to a pole outside, ripping off each frame and rephotographing it. the look suprised us.

“i’m a big fan of cartoon brew. you’ve turned me on to a lot of great animation both new and old and its a daily destination for me on the web. i’m sending along this link so you can put the video on the brew if you like. and also to show you what you in some way have inspired. thanks.”

The next letter is from John Brown (aka Jaye Bhee):

I’m an aspiring animator, busting my hump to put myself through animation courses (animation mentor, more specifically), and I’m so grateful to have cartoon brew as an enormous inspirational “bottomless well” of inspiration and history (I am obsessed with classic black and white cartoons)…

I’ve even done a sort of faux-homage (fauxmage?) to classic animation myself. It’s my first real try at a do-it-yourself animation (a la Bill Plympton), but I find it extremely rewarding (but exhausting, haha).

Anywho, if you have a free 2 minutes, feel free to check it out. If not, just know that what you’re doing is of incredible importance to beginners like me, and you guys provide constant inspiration. Thanks a quadrillion!

Thanks to several of our readers, I’ve just caught up with this music video from French music group, Justice. It’s directed by Jonas and François, a directing team at production company 75 in Paris. The art director and designer is So Me of Ed Banger Records. This creative team was also behind Kanye West’s The Good Life. Check that one out too.

(Thanks, Kelly Toon and Brad Constantine)

Its technically not animated, but I’m highly amused by this stick-puppet anime music video by Masakazu Amahisa for the Japanese techno-pop group Denki Groove.

The video tells the story of a couple who crash their car on a dark forest road and encounter a Konaki-jiji (a monster baby with the face of an old man) who leads them deep into the woods to a wild party for yokai (a klatsch of traditional Japanese monsters). The music comes from Denki Groove’s theme for the current anime horror series Hakaba Kitaro. This video, by manga artist and animator Amahisa (check out his previous animated video for the same group), has nothing to do with the TV series.

(Thanks, Seth Sherwood)

Just when you think everything that could possibly be done with old-school flipbooks has been done, along comes a refreshing example of the technique’s versatility. The new Kraak & Smack music video, “Squeeze Me”, is directed by Dutch filmmakers André Maat and Superelectric.

Bill Plympton just wrapped a new music video for Dutch musician Parson Brown. The video, “Mexican Standoff (Falling Into You)”, intercuts Plympton’s monochromatic animated scenes with live-action of the singer. Animation credits for the vid here.

Björk’s new music video for the song “Wanderlust” is AMAZING! It’s a staggeringly original mix of live-action, stop motion, CG and puppetry directed by San Francisco-based Encyclopedia Pictura (aka Sean Hellfritsch and Isaiah Saxon). The “regular” version debuted today, but they’ve also produced a stereoscopic 3D version that requires special glasses. This would definitely be something special to see on the big screen.

UPDATE I’ve removed the YouTube link because the directors of the video emailed to tell us that they’ve put up a beautiful hi-res Quicktime version of “Wanderlust” on their website, and they’d prefer if people could see this version. I think you’ll prefer seeing this version too.

Below is a ‘making of’ video and here is an interview with the directors about the challenges of producing the video in 3D. And these are the complete production credits.

In this day and age of slick and mostly overwrought CG visuals, it’s refreshing to see some lo-fi cutout animation, especially when it’s as beautifully done as the latest Spoon music video “You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb.” The video is directed by Double Triple and Ryan Junell (Junell animated the Obama campaign spots we wrote about last month). Be sure and also check out this terrific Flickr photoset offering a look at the video’s production process.

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