Following this recent post, many readers demanded better animated and funnier fruit people. So I present to you Joel Trussell’s new Kid 606 video “Mr. Wobble’s Nightmare.” Watch it here. Credits for the video are as follows:

Director: Joel Trussell
Animators: Anna & Mike Hollingsworth, Joel Trussell
DP & Editor: Michael Samstag
Camera: Matthew Rogers
Lighting: Jeff Reed

The winners were announced last night at the 40th annual ASIFA-East Animation Festival. The top Best in Show prize was awarded to the short film Q&A by the Rauch Brothers, comprised of brothers Tim and Mike. The film, which also competes in Annecy next month, is a gentle, funny and touching real-life conversation between a child with Asperger’s Syndrome and his mother. The other prize-winning film that really stood out for me was the Nullsleep music video “Dirty Rom Dance” created by Plasticflesh (aka Stieg Retlin). The 8-bit artwork style is dime-a-dozen nowadays which makes it all the more rare to see somebody take that visual approach and do something truly original and inventive with it. The video won for Excellence in Soundtrack, a dubious compliment in my opinion; the video game-y music is fine but it was the filmmaker’s pitch-perfect melding of hyperkinetic imagery with sound that truly made this film stand out, not to mention the incredible design and storytelling delivered via a limited palette. Neither Q&A nor “Dirty Rom Dance” are available on-line but keep an eye out for both of them.

Hamster Squaredance is one of the more visually distinctive music videos I’ve run across in a while. It was created for the musician Mr. Hayday by New Zealand-based Laurent Antonczak and Patricia Burgetsmaier. The lengthy description of the project on their Vimeo page does leave me slightly confused though:

The framework of “Hamster Squaredance” explores an aesthetic and conceptual relationship of rhythm and narrative by developing a new visual approach for displaying on small screens, mainly iPHONE. Furthermore “Hamster Squaredance” explores a new narrative structure (short-duration, screen limitations, narrative synchronised with music) and reinterprets the aesthetics of computer game industry from the early 80s into nowadays trend. While using basic, modular and simple graphics, which denote the early stage of computer development and its graphics, it develops yet highly crafted visuals, using the most advantageous elements of photography, illustrations and mix-media technique.

I love this. Using both praxinoscopes and a technique of matching up the frame rate of the spinning record to that of the camera, animator David Wilson used no computers to create this music video. Watch him explain it all, below:

(Thanks, Tom Knott via Motionographer)

Filmmaker David Lynch directed this animated video for a song Shot in the Back of the Head off of Moby’s upcoming album. I don’t care what you say - I like it.

(via Vanity Fair)

A visually impressive Space Invaders-themed music video directed by Reuben Sutherland of Joyrider Films for Röyksopp’s new single “Happy Up Here.” At first glance, I thought it was a mix of live and CG, but upon closer examination, it appears to be almost entirely CG. It’s a fun piece in which the visual elements and cutting perfectly match the energy of song’s beats.

“My Name is Potato” is an annoying 1977 novelty song by Italian singer Rita Pavone. The animation in the music video is its saving grace. Anybody know who’s responsible for it?

(Thanks, Celia)