Sometimes all it takes is a little bit of hair and pixilation. The film is by Andy Estep.

(Thanks, Marc Deckter)

Allison Schulnik’s video for Grizzly Bear is an unabashedly handmade stop motion piece. The colorful smears of lumpy clay are put through Bruce Bickford-esque transformations, and the imagery is manipulated well to match the haunting tone of the music. Schulnik is a graduate of the experimental program at CalArts.

(Thanks, Max Porter)

What a year. Coraline, Up, Ponyo, 9, Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs - topped off with The Princess and The Frog and Fantastic Mr. Fox.

In Fantastic Mr. Fox director Wes Anderson injects an adult sensibility, along with his usual indie filmmaking quirkiness, turning a childhood classic into a uniquely satisfying filmgoing experience. As far as I’m concerned, it’s one of the best films of the year. The animation style is refreshingly, intentionally retro: Rankin-Bass meets Willis O’Brien, by way of Ladislas Starevich. In this exclusive promo (below) we get a quick peak behind the scenes at the London studio that put it together:

(via Atom Films)

Here’s the way it should be: the stop motion sequence from Flintstones: On the Rocks (2001), by the gang at Screen Novelties.

P.S. Grab a higher quality download off the Screen Novelties website.

Another purchase I made at Cinecon this past Labor Day, was an entire stack of Films In Review magazines, the entire run from 1956 through 1959. I’ve been going through them slowly and enjoying them throughly, finding many great insights and articles about the history of film. There was so little written about animation in these pages that I was surprised to find this piece on pioneer stop motion animator Ladislas Starevich in the April 1958 issue. It’s a nice overview of his career, written while Starevitch was still alive and working. Since I couldn’t find it posted anywhere else on the web, I figured it was my duty - in the interests of history - to add it here myself. (Click thumbnails below to enlarge)

For those who need to brush up on their Starevich I highly recommend the DVD collection, Cameraman’s Revenge & Other Fantastic Tales. In the meantime, here is the one of his classics, from 1933, The Mascot:

A graduation film by Sjors Vervoort of The Netherlands, with sound design by Steven Aerts. While I would have liked to see the interplay between the cardboard creatures and their real-world surroundings pushed even further, there’s some imaginative ideas throughout the piece.

Oregon Live is reporting that Henry Selick is leaving his home base at Laika. The studio did not explain the departure other than to say that Selick’s contract has expired. This follows Laika’s decision to focus primarily on stop-motion and lay off 63 CG animators.

You can read Laika’s official statement on Henry’s departure here.