Bill Plympton and Kanye West

The new Kanye West music video “Heard ‘Em Say,” animated by Bill Plympton, that I mentioned earlier can now be viewed HERE. In the BET interview before the video, West says he used Plympton’s hand-drawn animation style because he wanted “something new, refreshing” and also that he wanted visuals that expressed “how natural the song feels, how organic the song is.” Now, Kanye West is certainly not a bellwether for animation trends, but I found those statements really interesting. Suddenly, it’s no longer computer animation that is considered hip and exciting, but rather hand-drawn animation, an art form over a hundred years old. Indeed, the raw messy esthetic of Plympton’s drawing style is a welcome change of pace from today’s endless parade of mathematically perfect CG models and animation, and the video is a great example showing that hand-drawn animation is still a vital and powerful art form, especially when used by artists like West who are savvy enough to know the technique’s strengths and the appropriate places to use it.
(via fps magazine)