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.

Robbert Bobbert is a character and album created by Robert Schneider of The Apples in Stereo. The new music video, We R Super Heroes, was directed by Puny Entertainment. Super Hero Guest Artists include: Jordan Crane (The Clouds Above, NON, Uptight), Gene Ha (Top 10, The Fourty Niners. DC Cover Artist), Craig McCracken (Powerpuff Girls, Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends), Chris McDonnell (Meat Haus, Vice Comics), Mark Todd (Whatcha Mean, What’s a Zine?) and Todd Webb (Tuesday Moon, Nickelodeon Magazine).

Among the many fine people I met at the Fredrikstad Animation Festival in Norway last year was stop motion artist Jan Rune Blom. He promised to send me a link to this music video for singer Helene Bøksle when he was done with it. He didn’t let me down.

After the singer was filmed, the stills were transferred onto paper, cut out, and shot as stop motion. He tells me:

There are no digital effects or digital post production on the piece. Everything was shot on a Canon 300D SLR camera, and all pictures were imported into Final Cut for editing.I really like working with a lot of analog details and solutions. And I like the “analog feeling” of the end product. My brother Tor Harald Blom made the original 2D illustrations of trees and animals. Everything else I did myself. I spent like seven to eight months working on this.

These behind-the-scene pics on Jan’s blog give a hint of the painstaking work that went into making this piece. The results are lovely.

Incredible eye candy in this new animated music video by Watermark, an illustrator’s collective based in New Zealand and Australia. With only 8 weeks from start to finish, they created a music video for Greg Johnson’s song I Got Opinions utilizing the creative talents of eight different illustrators and their distinct styles. You can see a hi-def clip on the Watermark homepage, and check out the production blog with storyboards, pre viz and stills, as well as the animators credits here.

(Thanks, Dave Follett)

“My Favorite Way” is a colorful and visually inventive video for Black Drawing Chalks directed by Marck Al at the Brazilian studio Nitrocorpz. Virgilio Vasconcelos, who was responsible for the CG animation, has posted some interesting ‘making of’ footage and production details on his blog. In his email, Virgilio also told me that two of the band members animated on the project.

CREDITS
Production: Nitrocorpz / Bicleta sem Freio
Direction: Marck Al
Dir.Photography: Jovan de Melo
Illustrations: Douglas Castro, Victor Rocha, Jovan de Melo
2D Animation: Douglas Castro, Victor Rocha, Jovan de Melo
3D modelling: Virgilio Vasconcelos
3D animation: Virgilio Vasconcelos
Aditional animations: Suryara Bernardi, Daryn Wakasa
Composition: Victor Rocha, Marck Al

What do you think? I much prefer this imaginative fan made video by Gabe Askew (below) over the official, professionally produced one posted on You Tube.

(via Motionographer)