Brazilian artist Helder Santos drew, animated and directed this video for the local band Eddie and singer Karina Buhr. Santos writes:

The video is a protest against the violence and social problems in Brazil. Everybody thinks of Brazil as the fun, carnaval country. We tried to put what really happens here though the vision of a masked ball carnaval of horror. Hope you like it.

Santos produced it along with his wife Camilla and friends at production house CherryPlus.

This morning, an example of animation from South Africa. Animator Mike Scott created this video for the band Goldfish. Software and tools used were Photoshop CS4, Anime Studio Pro 6, Final Cut Express 4 HD, Macbook, Macbook Pro, Wacom Intuos 3 and Wacom Cintiq 12 WX .

The latest video for the Canadian band Tom Fun Orchestra from the duo Alasdair Brotherston and Jock Mooney (we featured their previous piece here a couple of months ago). This one, done in a moody silouette style, was just nominated for a UK VMA award.

Don’t miss Anthony F. Schepperd’s video for Ape School’s “Wail to God.” The immediacy and intensity of his drawn animation is a real pleasure to watch. His stretchy character transformations and surrealist touches like the NSFW tit-trees give off a vibe of somebody who’s having fun with the possibilities of animation.

Michael Fragstein directed this video for the group Vania and the Master. It looks even better in High Def. Fragstein produced it through German design firm Büro Achter April, and concieved it with artists Vânia Oliveira and Moritz Reichartz All three animated the piece.

What were you doing when you were seventeen years old? Dave Mahler made this music video. The video is for a track on the debut album of Firefly Effects. It took four months, and is comprised of 1,640 hand drawn and watercolored frames.

(Thanks, Hobo Divine)

Here Comes Science is a new album of science-related children’s songs by They Might Be Giants. The dvd that is included with the package offers an animated short for each of the nineteen songs. The videos were clearly made on a budget, and some of them suffer for that, though there are plenty of good ones too. Overall, it’s worth applauding the ambitiousness of the project. Here are some of the videos that have appeared online:

“Science is Real”
Directors: David Cowles, Andy Kennedy
Character Design: David Cowles
Backgrounds: David Cowles, Andy Kennedy
Animation: Andy Kennedy, Chris Conforti, Adam Sacks, Sean McBride

“Put It to the Test”
Directors: David Cowles, Jeremy Galante

“How Many Planets?”
Director: Colourmovie

“Electric Car”
Directors: Max Porter and Ru Kuwahata

“Why Does the Sun Shine?”
Director: Hine Mizushima

“Meet the Elements”
Director: Feel Good Anwyay

“Enchanted by a pixie, a child called Yorick enters a magical kingdom, but when Yorick returns he finds his world ravaged by time.”

Another nice music video by Giles Timms, this time set in a hand drawn pen and ink world inspired by Edward Gorey and animated in a cut-out style. Compositing and animation in After Effects. Produced at the Animation Workshop at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. The track, Dead All Along, is performed by Ceri Frost.