Could you pitch a no-hitter while tripping on LSD? Check out illustrator James Blagden’s hilarious video that landed him in Utah for the Sundance Film Festival.
This Fashion Week (a mere three weeks away!) will be the last held at Bryant Park. Don’t miss the CFDA party celebrating Lincoln Center as the new home of New York Fashion Week.
Step off the plane into a wave of humidity, scented with flowers, spice, and ocean air. After a month of roughing it in India, join Jessica Marati for a little R&R — a long weekend in Bali…
A lonely heart roams the urban cityscape looking for some companionship in this sweet and short film by Laurent Clermont. It’ll warm even the heart of the biggest cynic and grouch out there.
Serene Teh, a graphic design student in Singapore, created for one of her courses this super fresh flip book animation depicting the aggressive urban sport of Parkour aka Extreme Walking. I think it’s safe to assume she got good marks from the teacher for this effort.
I previously featuredPatrick Boivin’s entertaining stop-motion toy figure fight between Bruce Lee and Iron Man. Boivin is back with another installment that animates a twirling Michael Jackson in a dance off against Mr. Bean, who’s got his own trick up his sleeve. Boivin perfectly captures the inane imaginative battles I used to conjure up with my own action figures when I was just a 27-year-old child.
Roy Prol animates an answer to the the what-if question, “What if Earth had a ring?” For one, Saturn could step off its high horse with its fancy rings. Second, the earthling view of the sky would be fantastic. Incorporating a bit of real science for some level of believability, Prol shows how the rings would appear depending on where the viewer is located. You think a full moon is magical? That’s nothing compared to what New York City’s night sky would look like with the rings glowing from the light of the sun.
An amusing animated short about a tendency we are all guilty of at times: procrastination. Creator Johnny Kelly describes the different ways we spend our time doing things to avoid doing what we should be doing.
Brooklyn artist James Blagden created a terrific short film that animates former major league pitcher Dock Ellis’ entertaining narration of his infamous no-hitter for the Pittsburgh Pirates against the San Diego Padres in 1970 while he was “high as a Georgia pie,” or specifically under the influence of LSD. After retiring, he later worked as a drug counselor before passing away last December.
Sundance Channel recently sat down for an interview with Kris Lefcoe, the director of TINY RIOT PROJECT. What started as a music video for a small Canadian band ended up installed at some of the most prestigious art galleries and venues in the world suck as Art Basel Miami, Havana Biennale, and Galerie Tomas Schulte Berlin. Watch TINY RIOT PROJECT at Sundance Channel’s Digital Shorts.
What was the inspiration for TINY RIOT PROJECT?
Lefcoe : A few years ago I had a vision of an army of Care Bears and Coppertone girls attacking kids. I wanted to re-contextualize these sweet and cuddly icons as a bastion of corporate power. I ended up dropping the Coppertone girls and going for more of the Saturday morning cartoon plushies.
Why did you choose stop motion over other forms of animation, even live action?
Lefcoe : Stop motion is just so charming, so endearing. The viewer is drawn into this magical world, it’s irresistible. So it was the perfect medium, a surprising juxtaposition with the violence and political critique in the film. But it’s dangerously addictive. After shooting it, I wanted to shoot everything in stop motion.
Cardboard creatures roams a foreboding urban landscape in this awesome stop-motion video created by Sjors Vervoort for a student graduation animation project. Well done, kid. The style does remind me of the past work of famous street artist Blu who I previously mentioned.
While it’s not out until November 13th, there have been plenty of teasers and trailers and behind-the-scenes sneak peaks to keep us satiated until the much-aniticpated release of FANTASTIC MR. FOX. This one, courtesy of Wired, is appropriately tech-heavy and shows the intricate system of cameras and computers that allow production units in various locations to work with each other in real time. That means Wes Anderson, from his apartment in Paris, can see the set in London and even direct an animator to change the angle of a puppet’s head ever so slightly.
And if you look closely at the set that visual effects guru Matthew Kitcat uses an example in the video, you’ll see that the armchair configuration Mr. Fox has (with a board propped up over knees and across the arms of the chair) is a nicely done homage to Roald Dahl’s own method, pictured below. Nice touch.
I enjoyed the un-distilled and amateurish flickering animation in the video for Firefly Escape’s “All the jokes are on me.” It took a very dedicated and patient director David Mahler four months to illustrate the 1,640 hand drawn and water-colored frames used in the video.
Tilda Swinton at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival
