This music video, by Latin American group Kumbia All-Stars, has been around for several months but I just got around to watching it. Anyone know who did the character animation?

(Thanks to Jake Friedman for pointing me toward it and a nod to Misce-looney-ous for beating me to it)

Pete Mitchell, frontman of the band No More Kings, writes to Cartoon Brew:

“i’ve checked cartoonbrew pretty much every day for the past year and a half, and it never ceases to provide inspiration. i’ve always been a huge fan of ghostbot’s work, and i finally had the pleasure of hiring them to animate my new music video.”

The music video, for their song “Michael (Jump In),” can be seen below. More behind-the-scenes details about the production of the animation are being posted both at the band’s blog and on the Ghostbot blog.

A little creativity goes a long way, which is why this hand-drawn music video created by Nadia Barkate, Marion Cruza and Eider Gutierrez is such a delight. It’s for the Spanish rock group Paniks. (via BoingBoing)

Directed by Andrei T. Bakhurin, this fun collaborative animation jam (Multfilm) from Russia (whose full title translates as St. Petersburg is More Than Twice as Little as Moscow) was entirely animated on or with Post-It notes.

(Thanks, Sal Dekku)

Director Simon Laganière’s new music video for the Quebec duo Tricot Machine uses artwork that is entirely knitted. Over 700 unique knitted pieces were created for the video by Lysanne Latulippe of the fashion label Majolie.

(Thanks, Simon Boulianne)

“Sorrow of the Soldier” is a one-off animated music video released on the Internet today. The video, which protests the US occupation of Iraq, is a collaboration between a global roster of hip-hop artists from the US, UK, Japan and Europe. The animation by UK artist James Harvey achieves a striking look through mixing an illustrative style with bold graphic symbols, all in black-and-white with well-employed spots of color. The video’s website features multiple remix versions—streaming on YouTube and available for hi-res download. Here’s more about the project from its press release:

The track, ‘Sorrow of the Soldier’ by US Rapper Mark Prysler, tells the story of Lucas, a working-class man who runs out of options in his own life and sees the army as an attractive means of escape. Upon deployment he finds the reality of the Iraq war is far removed from the fantasy sold to him by the Bush administration. The story is an analog for the experiences of many young men and women fighting in Iraq today and the lyrics call for direct action from the government.

Uniquely, the video has been simultaneously released in several different versions, each with a separate audio track by a different global collaborator. Each remix artist was asked to choose a ‘flavour’ to represent themselves on the website. The standout ‘mint’ version features production from Holland’s DJ Donor, who has remixed artists such as Pharrell Williams, while ‘Cheese’ flavour is remixed by Takashi Otagiri, the president of Tokyo Fun Party, a Japan-based dance music collective. More remixes are to be added to the website over the coming month from hip-hop artists from France, Germany, and both east and west coast America.

SVA student Tamara Gildengers Connolly used type characters to create this music video for Nina Simone singing “Feeling Good.” Using type in this manner seems to be a fairly typical assignment in motion graphics and design classes, but the results manage to impress in this piece.

(via Grain Edit)