“Apache” by Ned Wenlock

Circular continuity is one of animation’s oldest concepts — think phenakistoscopes and zoetropes — so it takes a certain amount of creativity to build on the idea. Ned Wenlock, from Wellington, New Zealand, offers a fresh approach in his music video “Apache” for Danger Beach. The digital “paper-roll” concept isn’t used to fulfill any particular demand of the story, and as such, it comes across as a bit of a gimmick, but the appeal and novelty of Wenlock’s approach is worthy of recognition. I fully anticipate seeing his technique ripped off by multiple ad agencies within the next few months. Rodney Selby did character animation on the piece. Wenlock speaks about some of his ideas for the video on his blog.