If Disney’s early-60s paper cutout short A Symposium on Popular Songs had included black people, they might have looked something like this music video that Megan Brain (mentioned here previously) recently designed for Cartoon Network’s Class of 3000 series. Joe Horne boarded and Chris Staples animated the characters in After Effects. Check it out below.

The Presets’ “Girl and the Sea” is an incredibly lovely mixed-media music video directed by Lee Lennox. It’s not a new video—it was released in 2005—but now, a hi-res AVI has appeared online over here. The video, which is obviously an homage to Russian master Yuri Norstein, deserves to be seen in this higher quality to be fully appreciated. Lee Lennox is represented by Draw Pictures in the UK (click on “Promo Directors” on the site to see more of his work).

(Thanks, Philip Rogosky)

To take a break from his day job as a CG animator at Nexus Productions, Brew reader Ben Cowell created a stop-motion music video for the The Schla La Las animated entirely with Lego. The video, which has a lighthearted lo-fi charm, can be viewed here. Ben has also posted a making of page.

Romain Segaud (b. 1980) is one of France’s most exciting up-and-coming animation talents. He was the co-director of the awesome student film TIM TOM (mentioned here earlier) and the music video BIP BIP (pictured above). Now he has a website - RomainSegaud.com - featuring most of his animated films and commercial work. I love all the fun inventive movement he manages to get into his digital photo cut-out style.

(via Fous d’Anim)

Below are the striking titles for the Madonna film WHO’S THAT GIRL (1987). The titles, which reimagine Madonna as a Betty Boop-ish figure, were designed by Daniel Melgarejo (1948-1989), an Argentinean cartoonist who did a lot of work at Disney’s Character Merchandising division in the 1980s. Among the artists who animated on this opening were John Canemaker and Elinor Blake. Last year, Oscar Grillo posted some of Daniel’s illustration work on his blog and there’s a tribute site to Melgarejo here.

UPDATE: A reader, who prefers to remain anonymous, wrote in to say that the Madonna character in the video was animated entirely by Doug Frankel, who is currently an animator at Pixar.

UPDATE #2: Animator Norma Rivera-Klingler, who worked on the titles, writes to say that the Madonna character was not animated entirely by Doug Frankel, as mentioned above. Norma writes:

The scenes Doug animated were the ones where she turns around and lip syncs to the song, then she dances with the local hookers, then the one where she steps in front of the store with multiple images of herself walking…the walking animation was animated by Bob McKnight and he animated quite a few of her scenes as well. Dan Haskett, Bill Plympton, Bob Scott, Rick Machin, Ed Rivera and I, Norma Rivera (his sister, not wife), also animated on the titles. I animated the opening where she steps out of the Warner Bros. shield, strikes a pose then drops. Bob McKnight’s animation picks up from there. I also animated when the thugs are running and one gets stuck in the manhole and when the thugs toss the body in the trunk as Madonna gets in her car…Bob Scott’s animation picks up from there. Ed animated the crowd of blue people who ogle at Madonna as she passes…those are caricatures of some of the people working at the studio….Broadcast Arts, now Curious Pictures NY…Ed is the curly haired guy, Rick Machin is the Smooth haired guy and I think Daniel was one of them…the bald guy. I don’t remember exactly who animated what in the rest of the title, but I’m sure there will be someone else to pass on any information.

(Thanks, Marc Crisafulli)

Is it just me or is there more innovative stop-motion work being produced today than at any time in recent memory? To follow-up on the post below, here’s an excellent piece of computer-manipulated stop-motion, live action and puppeteering. This new Norah Jones music video, “Sinkin’ Soon,” is directed by Ace Norton. Watch it at NorahJones.com (go to the “Media” section, click on the TV screen, and then click on the “Sinkin’ Soon” title).

I really dug the raw visual vibe, and the immediacy and energy of the animation. Ben Zelkowicz, the supervising animator on the video, shares a few behind-the-scene details about its making:

It was a pretty crazy shoot - most of the animation was being shot on the same stage simultaneously with the live action, so lights were constantly getting tripped over, tables bumped, etc. as we (myself and Tennessee Reid Norton did most of the animation) tried to pump out the vast amounts of footage the director Ace Norton wanted. But I like the lo-fi aesthetic, all found objects, shooting several angles at once, as fast as humanly possible. I am particularly fond of the Svankmajer-esque screw guy playing the trumpet shot I did.

Animator TR Norton also has a few photos from the production posted on his blog.