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)

If Lotte Reiniger made trip-hop music videos in the 21st century, they might look something like this striking mixed-media silhouette piece produced for the Hungarian group Beat Dis. All I know about its animator, Emil Goodman, is that Emil Goodmanhe’s a 24-year-old from Hungary. There’s more of his work on his YouTube page.

“Dancing” is a goofy music video for the Israeli pop band The Walking Man. The eclectic mix of Hockney-esque photo collage, pixilation and 2D animation is directed by brothers Yuval and Merav Nathan.

(Thanks, Jake Parker)

Another recent music video to point out. This one is for the band Late of the Pier and their song “Space and the Woods.” The video is directed by the great Ian Emes, who’s been making animated shorts, films and music videos since the 1970s including Pink Floyd’s concert film “The Dark Side of the Moon.” The high-energy visuals do a fine job of evoking a Seventies early-CG vibe while simultaneously remaining fresh and contemporary.

(Thanks, Chris Padilla)

Music videos are such a great place for experimentation with visual techniques and ideas. Here’s three that have caught my attention recently. One is cross-stitched stop motion, one is puppets, and one is digital collage and live-action.

“Like It or Not”
for Architecture in Helsinki
directed by Josh Logue at Mathematics

“Champion”
for Kanye West
directed by Neon

“Sophisticated Side Ponytail”
for Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head
directed by That Go

Tiny Inventions, a Brooklyn-based animation studio run by husband-and-wife team Max Porter and Ru Kuwahata, recently created a fun and charming music video for Playhouse Disney called “Davy Crockett in Outer Space.” The song is by They Might Be Giants, and they co-directed the piece with designer/illustrator David Cowles. Max and Ru have also created a detailed “making of” blog post that shows all the hand-crafted effort that went into the production.

“White Winter Hymnal,” directed by Sean Pecknold, is a stop motion music video for Seattle-based Fleet Foxes. While I enjoy slickly crafted computer animation as much as the next person, there’s something especially refreshing nowadays about seeing a rough-around-the-edges piece of stop motion in which the artist’s hand can be felt in every frame.

JibJab’s latest political music video premiered last night on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and it’s another winner. Co-Director Evan Spiridellis tells us:

I think you’ll notice that we significantly upped the production value while trying to remain true to the original thing that made This Land work - funny collage heads. It was also really important to us was not to repeat ourselves so rather than the tit-for-tat that was in This Land we wanted to make this a true character piece and give each player a verse to try and define themselves. (It was a real challenge trying to sum up each candidate with only 5 lines!)

Evan and Gregg have also written a great production blog on the making of this particular film.