I saw Tom Brown and Daniel Gray’s t.o.m. several years ago, when it played the festival circuit in 2007 (winning the top student prize at Annecy that year). This charming film deceptively walks the line between innocent and twisted. I hadn’t known it was on the net until our colleagues at Motionographer posted it yesterday. Since 2009, Brown and Gray have been running Holbrooks Films in the UK, producing stylish commercials and viral pieces.

I think one could easily make the case that in the early-1980s, the most visually inventive and coolest looking cartoons in the world were being made in Hungary. To bolster the theory, here’s a 1985 piece of Hungarian psychedelia directed by Dóra Keresztes and István Orosz. The title Garabonciák translates to Wizards in English, and the music was composed by Károly Cserepes. Someone somewhere really needs to put together a retrospective of Eighties Hungarian features and shorts.

(via Meathaus)

The seventh film in our Student Animation Festival, The Story Of A Nice Girl, comes to us from Jean Yi who produced it at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore.

Yi’s film is an animated therapy session that reflects raw, real feelings in a perfectly charming way. Part of that charm comes from her vocal track which connects the viewer immediately to her story, her conversational performance being powerfully authentic and engaging. Her line drawings are deceptively simple. She draws herself as a simple stick figure, while others are drawn with more heft and personality. She uses color sparingly and for effect: gray lines for action or fantasy creations, pink for her band-aid, full color for her live “hand”. All this adds up to a perfectly satisfying autobiographical short that’s personal, sweet and yeah, dare I say it… nice.

To comment on the film or read notes from the filmmaker, click HERE.

Cartoon Brew’s second annual Student Animation Festival is made possible through the generous support of Titmouse and JibJab.

Here’s a clever cut-out style digest version of The Wizard of Oz animated by Reed Gauthier, to a score comprised of samples from the 1939 movie by VJ Pogo

(Thanks, Mike Stanfill)

Treat yourself to some Slap Back Jack on this fine Sunday. It’s a curious yet oddly compelling piece of children’s animation created and directed by New York-based Mark Newell, and animated by Jisoo Rim, Jessica Polaniecki and Newell.

West is an evocative hand-drawn piece directed and animated by Rhode Island-based filmmaker Steven Subotnick. The film delivers a powerful message using sophisticated graphic and filmmaking concepts:

“A president on a train chases a bear out west. One in a series of short animations about the destruction of the American wilderness.”

“Man, I loves me some retro-animation!”

I personally cannot get enough of the current spate of short films that are affectionate homages to silent era, vintage Hollywood and golden-age TV. Canadian animator (and Spumco veteran) Tavis Silbernagel made a little silent-era goodie with Nick Cross few years back. Says Silbernagel of this film:

“It’s an independent film I did a few years after I graduated college. I worked with Nick Cross on it and we produced it from start to finish in two weeks time. There was a lull of work at the studio we were at and we decided to team up on two shorts. One of which was ‘Fruit, Juice! Protein?’. I’m a fan of whimsical names and next to my first sketch of the character in my drawing book was a very bland shopping list: Fruit juice protein. I’ve been developing the idea over the years and it’s expanded quite a bit. Right now I’m working on a game for the storyline and I’m very excited about it. Combining such an old style of animation with the world of gaming and interactive media is a novel idea and I can’t wait to see how it’s recieved.”

(Thanks, Michael Valiquette)

A new piece of animation by Ian Miller. It may be a Cheap Joke, but Miller’s animation skills are no joke.

(Thanks, Brian Lonano)